I never met a spice bush I didn't like. Easy to see why: The leaves reek of cinnamon and clove when crushed, so of course deer leave this shrub alone. And the flowers have a unique-in-hardy-plants fruity-banana fragrance. The American versions, and there are several, have small but profuse flowers for some weeks in Spring and into Summer; the unusually-long blooming season is reason enough to grow it right there. And they are all impressively, even scarily, shade-tolerant. More shade-tolerant even than yews, oh yes. And so I even plant spice bushes in Manhattan, in gardens surrounded by skyscrapers and shaded directly overhead by huge trees. So far so good, but then there's a Chinese cousin too. It was crossed with the American to create the pink-flowered beauty you see here, 'Hartlage Wine'. And this one is in one of my Manhattan client gardens, with scarcely any sun. And look how happy it is.
What you can't see is that it's already eight feet tall and only four years old. What a performer!
Yes yes, the flowers are pink. Unashamedly, excitedly, exuberantly. Fine: that's why I have two enormous Pink Borders. Hartlage Wine: come home to papa.

My hardy orange is in full flower in these cool April days.
"Cool" in both ways in these still-chilly-at-night weeks, thanks to the starry scatter of pure white flowers, so eager, so delicate...
...and yet arising from such a brutally spiky plant.   
As soon as their show is over—another week or so—we'll return to the hardy orange, this time with the big camera, the pruning platform, and even the loppers and folding saw: It will be pruning time!
Not "off with its head" time, just tidying and slimming, making the contours clear and the shape more, well, shapely. A day at the spa, not an assassination.