Fragrance Gardens

What could be more wonderful than strolling through a flower garden full of scent and fragrance and in bloom all season from spring through fall?

Everyone, gardener or just visitor, loves a fragrant flower, whether it's spicy, musky or sweetly scented. With careful selection, you can design and plant a flower garden to provide special scents and aromas to appreciate and enjoy from early spring to late fall.

Planted in a concentrated area as a fragrant theme garden, in containers, or interspersed  throughout your garden for special fragrant interludes as you pass by, you'll enjoy your garden even more.

In early spring, we all welcome and are thrilled at the sight of early blooming bulbs. What you may not know is many of these early flowers are also deliciously fragrant.

Tiny grape hyacinth and traditional hyacinths planted with narcissus by your front door, or in pots on the front porch will welcome everyone with color and fragrance. Siberian squill, with its bluebell blooms can quickly fill in your beds with early spring color and scent, along with a few fragrant daffodils.

In a woodland setting or shaded area, plant lily of the valley for a bright scented groundcover. When you're buying bulbs for fragrance, do some research, as not all species or varieties are equally fragrant.

As spring progresses, lilacs, roses and peonies perfume the air. Not all roses are equally scented, so if you're going for a fragrance garden, shop carefully. Plant taller shrubs such as lilacs at the back of a bed, or prune into a small specimen tree near a walkway, where the heady scent will be appreciated.

Lush peonies look great even before they bloom, with their bushy foliage, but as they bloom, they delight the eye with their blowsy huge blooms. Plant enough for some cut blooms to fill the air inside your home with their rich heady fragrance.

Line your walkway with border carnations (dianthus). Their delicious clove scented flowers grow on compact plants that are also good for containers. Their silvery-green foliage is another bonus.

The all-time favorite among floral scents is that of sweet peas. Check the label on the seed package to ensure you get the really fragrant ones, and plant them early. If you're short of trellises for them to grow on, plant them beneath bushes and shrubs, and they'll grow up through, with the colorful blossons peeking out.

Many flowers are more fragrant at night. Night-scented stock, nicotiana, four-o-clocks and moonflower vines will bloom well into fall, giving months of fragrant enjoyment

Use plants that have aromatic foliage, along with your fragrant blossoming plants. Monarda or bee-balm has the double advantage of fragrant foliage and flowers that attract bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

Lemon verbena, scented geraniums, thyme, tansy, santolina, rosemary and lavender all have the bonus of flowers as well as scented leaves.Creeping thyme grown between paving or stepping stones will release a refreshing scent as it is crushed underfoot.

If you're ready to add a scent themed garden, whether it is in flowerbeds or containers, check with your local nursery for what will thrive in your area. The plants listed above are just a few of the richly scented ones available to add that extra dimension to your gardens.