Garden use all of our senses to create a wonderful atmosphere in any location. Although smell, sight, touch, and even taste can be engaged by a garden, the sense of smell is one of the most powerful for evoking and capturing memories and emotions. Plants that smell nice can even bring back certain memories and help alleviate stress. By selecting the right fragrant plants, you can create a special atmosphere and make your garden a memorable experience.
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Check PriceDesigning a fragrance garden should be done with care beyond simply incorporating flowers that smell good. With knowledge of how scents move through air, the various scents produced by different types of plants, the intervals at which these scents are released, how different scents interact with or complement each other, and how to place plants in layers to create a depth of scent to produce more experiences, a garden can be designed to have multiple enjoyable unique experiences for visitors at varying times throughout each day and different times throughout each season.
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1. Lavender – The Aromatherapy Garden Foundation
Having English Lavender is great because it releases a relaxing fragrance that can reduce stress hormones and it is a natural mosquito repellent! English Lavender also produces the strongest scent of all the lavenders and can survive the coldest winters.
2. Jasmine – Evening Liquid Perfume
Star Jasmine and Confederate Jasmine scents are most powerful right after sunset, which helps set the scene for romance in an evening garden. These strong climbers easily grow over fences, arbors and walls, and in summer their cascading blooms are a spectacular sight for the entire neighborhood.
3. Roses – Couches de parfum
David Austin roses and their heritage counterparts give off true rose scents, which most modern hybrids do not offer. There are a range of spicy, fruity, and even romantically deep notes. The complex fragrances of these plants should be planted close to seating areas so that the full appreciation of the scent can be enjoyed.
4. Rosemary – A Powerhouse for the Culinary and the Senses
This evergreen herb will smell like pine all year round, making it great for planting along walkways. It releases this scent when crushed underfoot or brushed. It also repel deer and rabbits, provide you with fresh herbs for cooking.
5. Alyssum – Honey Clouds at Ground Level
Because of the sweet fragrant blooms that give off an intoxicating, honey-like fragrance, Sweet Alyssum is a carpet-forming perennial flower that is able to provide the fragrance of honey at a walking height, thus making it very useful for path borders where pedestrians walk. This annual plant is a self-seeder and will self-seed on a consistent basis, allowing for dependable coverage of fragrance.
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6. Stock – Spice Market in Flower Form
Evening stock releases their clove-scented fragrance at night! Unlike evening stock, ten-week stock releases a spicy sweet fragrance that is stronger during the day. Both parents also provide an interesting scent and attract advantageous night pollinators when combined with a variety of other plants.
7. Evaporating Magic of Rose-Citrus
The enchanting rose-citrus fragrance of double peonies is most intense in late spring. Varieties such as Sarah Bernhardt and Festiva Maxima produce such strong fragrances that they can be detected from one end of the garden to the other! Since they only flower for a limited time, their fragrance is truly unique.
8. Sweet Basil – Abundance of Edible Aroma
Basil plants give off a minty fragrance when you touch the leaves. This is a great reason to use them in areas with a lot of people. African Blue Basil has beautiful purple flowers that attract beneficial insects while also keeping the scent to the leaves.
9. Mint – Scent That Cools
On hot summer days, Chocolate mint, apple mint, and spearmint help cool off and refresh the body and mind. You can use pots to control where they spread. Place them where people can brush against the pots to release the wonderful minty scent.
10. Gardenia – Exotic Intensity
No other flower has a scent as strong as gardenias which has a creamy and tropical smell. One shrub can smell up the whole patio. These evergreen shrubs provide shiny leaves all year round in warmer climates. They smell the strongest in late spring and summer.
11. Cereus Night-Blooming – Midnight Magic
Each year this cactus hosts ''grand'' events by opening enormous, sweet-smelling flowers that exude a vanilla-lemon scent so powerful that it can entice even those inside the house! For this reason, it can be an excellent focal point of desert and container gardens.
12. Honeysuckle – A Fond Childhood Memory
The native trumpet honeysuckles will have a sweet nectar scent and will differ from the Japanese varieties which are invasive. They can be trained across arbors or fences, their tubular flowers will attract hummingbirds and will have a honey scent in the summer.
13. SweedErwtjies – Subtiele Sagte Soetheid
Old-fashioned varieties of sweet peas have a lovely fragrance that modern cultivars just can't replicate. They come in a range of colors, from white to a deep purple. These climbing annuals are wonderful for cutting gardens, as their delightful scent can be enjoyed outside and inside.
14. Four O'Clocks – Time Released Scent
Unique flowers have a special scent and bloom in the late afternoon. This makes a timed sensory experience in evening gardens. These flowers should be put in spaces where people will spend time during cocktail hour or relax at sunset.
Combining gardens and scents will improve visitors' experiences. Keep in mind that scent and sight don't function the same. When designing a fragrance garden, position scented plants around seating areas, walkways, and windows (especially those that will be open in the seasons when the plants are in bloom). Having varying levels and layers of intensity and timing of fragrance will keep visitors interested and engaged regardless of the time of day or season.
