Have you heard of a scented garden? Sure, we all like to stop and smell the roses, but what if you had a garden that smelled glorious all year long instead of just a few weeks in the summer? The most beautiful gardens captivate all the senses. Creating a garden by selecting plants that will maximize the pleasing aromas can make your garden smell just as good as it looks.
Fragrance can add a new dimension of pleasure to your garden and your senses. Fragrance and aromas are very personal. Everyone as a unique sense of smell and preferences. You can design your scented garden to evoke the moods and feelings you want to experience. A journey through your garden can be an emotive and personal experience.
What types of plant fragrances are there?
Fragrances have been used throughout history culturally for physical and mental well-being. Scents are categorized by their properties and can help you profile them and decide where to incorporate them into your landscape.
Floral: Plants such as jasmine, gardenia, peony, lily of the valley, and oriental lilies provide sweet fragrances that help us to relax.
Woodsy: Rosemary, balsam and cedar can help you focus and promotes mental acuity.
Fresh: Lavender, mint, citrus can help you feel refreshed and simulated. They add a little bit of zest to your garden.
Spicy: Who doesn’t like a little spice in their life? Deep, musky scents that are sensual and relaxed can be brought to your garden via roses, carnations, and sage.
How does it work exactly?
After you choose which plants and fragrances you prefer you just need to put them in the right spots! Plants can be placed in as many places as possible to help your garden to smell as good as it looks. If you’re looking for some delicious summer evening smells plant flowering tobacco, brugmansia, night phlox, and four-o-clocks in a cozy summer lounge spot. If you want to liven up your deck and patio plant roses, gardenias, jasmine and crinum. A well-placed hyacinth beside your front door and Oriental lilies or lilacs beneath your bedroom window will allow you to enjoy them at all the right times.
How do I make it last all year long?
Scented gardens aren’t just for the summer, you can enjoy fragrance all year round by carefully curating your garden to bloom at different times during the growing season.
Here are some plants that will bloom each month:
January – jasmine, paperwhites, freesia
February – freesia, jasmine, sweet box, winter daphne, witch hazel
March – daffodils, hyacinths, forced muscari
April – daffodils, hyacinths, muscari
May – sweetshrub, wisteria, lilacs, bearded iris, tulips, lily of the valley, creeping phlox, wallflowers, citrus, azaleas
June – mock orange, peony, fringetree, stock, sweet peas, rhododendron, daphne, roses, dianthus, sweet alyssum
July – daylilies, garden phlox, oriental lilies, heliotrope, petunias, lavender, sweet alyssum, yucca
August – freesia, nicotiana, butterfly bush, mignonette, clethra, four-o’clocks, brugmansia, oriental trumpet lilies, gardenia
September – autumn clematis, glossy abelia, acidanthera, brugmansia, tuberose, snakeroot, gardenia, roses, acidanthera
October – variegated silverberry, sweet olive
November – balsam fir
December – balsam fir, paperwhites
These are just a few options of plants that you could add to your scented garden to captivate your senses all year round. Come on by the Nursery and we can chat some more.
