Take a minute this week and let your nose lead you on a fragrant tour of your garden. Right now there are many plants in bloom with delicious-smelling flowers and don’t forget those with aromatic foliage too.
We have let large patches of milkweed grow up in an attempt to aid the butterflies, bees and other beneficial insects that are drawn to them. They have the sweetest aroma and when it wafts on the breeze over to where I am working in the garden I can’t help but drop what I’m doing to inhale deeply and savor the perfume. It is intoxicating! I can’t believe that perfume makers haven’t bottled that essence to sell. They probably would need to give it a fancy name to make it marketable. Eau de Milkweed doesn’t have a sexy ring to it . . . unless you’re a butterfly.
Roses are an obvious choice when searching for fragrance in the garden, but unfortunately many new hybrids lack a scent. As is the case with some peonies to, often fragrance is one of the qualities lost when hybridizers start tinkering with plants by breeding them for larger flowers, new colors, repeat blooming or longer blossoming time. For fragrance, heirloom varieties are usually the best. My tough old rugosa rose has the most delicious cinnamon-rose scent and the blossoms of the pink shrub rose a friend gave me years ago have the old-fashioned damask aroma that makes me swoon.
The Oriental lilies have a powerfully sweet smell that can be overwhelming indoors. Out in the garden, they perfume a large area with almost visible clouds of fragrance, making it worth the effort involved in fighting off the red lily leaf beetles.
Most members of the dianthus family have fragrant flowers, some smelling sweetly just like their cousins, the carnations, and others with a spicy clove scent. Ipswich pinks and tall sweet William are blossoming right now in our garden and both have a sweet, carnation-like aroma.
Clethra has to be one of the best smelling summer-blooming shrubs. We have both white and pink blossomed varieties and both smell delicious, like a fruity summer drink. The shrubby clematis heracleifolia has blue, bell-shaped flowers with a vanilla scent.
Our honeysuckle took a beating this winter and has been cut back to about a quarter of its former size. Even so, it is spitting out blossoms that have a distinctive honey-like aroma that intensifies late in the day and into the night.
Many fragrant annual flowers are night bloomers, so lather up with mosquito repellant and venture out after dark to savor their perfumes. Nicotiana, balsam, stock, and even some petunias don’t release their scent until evening.
Head to the herb garden for fragrant foliage and a little homegrown aromatherapy. Mints, though they can be invasive, offer instant delight when a leaf is crushed. We have a delicious spearmint that reminds me of the mint julip candies I loved as a child and chocolate mint that smells just like mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Peppermint’s aroma has a relaxing effect and improves concentration. The scent of rosemary heightens mental clarity – something I could use more of – while lavender has a calm, soothing effect. Anise hyssop smells like root beer and the carpet of thyme releases the scent from its resinous leaves whenever we walk by it. Other culinary herbs, like basil, dill, and oregano bring to mind the foods we love.
Whether your garden is fragrant by design or just by accident, take time to stop and smell the flowers, just be sure to check for bees before sticking your nose into a blossom!
If you would like to take a fragrant garden tour with an expert, head to Stoddard on Saturday, Aug. 20. As part of the Garden Conservancy Open Days, well-known garden writer Tovah Martin will present a lecture called “The Nostril Chronicles: a Nose’s Tour of the Garden” and lead a tour of designer Jenny Lee Hughes’s garden at 3 p.m. For more information, visit gardenconservancy.org/open-days.