Oh my goodness !!!! So fabulous !!!! I'm with you, Schoolhouse. Privet scent is INTOXICATING. I cut branches and bring them indoors. Two branches will scent the whole house !!!

So, beautiful! I want an arch exactly like that. How serene and peaceful.

Martha

I love your arch. I don't know anything about privet, but it seems a lot of people dislike it. Now, i will need to look it up. I am intrigued by your descriptions of the fragrance!

Sigh. Won't be looking for privet. Even though I am still considered mid-Atlantic here in northern VA, we are close enough to being southeast and all nine species in the SE U.S are considered invasive and have been linked to declines in honey bee populations as well as those of butterflies as privet outperforms natives. I am trying to move more toward natives here, although I can't resist some that aren't.

I will enjoy it vicariously through you, school!

Here is a link that might be useful: Private as invasive

I don't know about it being invasive - it's not taking over here. Gets tall like a tree. I prune 1 like a tree. The others are along the back fence line - I just let them go wild.

I think some varieties seed down more than others. I have an old fashioned privet my uncle planted in the 40s or 50s and it is later to bloom and not heavily, less seed. The kind I planted blooms quite a bit and I have to pull seedlings when I see them. However, four starts I got from a neighbor one year to create a screen across the very end of the arch (behind the urn) produce much larger berries and more of them. Turns out it was golden privet.

Perhaps instead of privet then, you can sub. another plant like say a golden chain tree or a variety of lilacs.