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Ask a Garden Designer: What Should I Plant to Grow a Scented Garden?
Bringing perfumed plants into your garden will turn time spent outdoors into a sensual delight
There’s something wonderful about walking into a garden, being overwhelmed by a heavenly scent and not knowing where it’s coming from. You hunt around to find the plant and immerse yourself in the intoxicating blooms to refresh and calm the senses. There are so many scented plants to choose from that will help you to make this pleasure one you can enjoy in your own garden. Here’s just a small selection to inspire your planting…
Read the first piece in this new series: How to Create a Lush, Jungle-style Haven
Read the first piece in this new series: How to Create a Lush, Jungle-style Haven
Enhance a seating spot with daphne
Daphne Odora has to be one of the most intensely scented early flowering evergreen shrubs that herald the joys of spring. Its somewhat misshapen branches hold balls or clusters of highly scented small pink flowers, while the slightly hardier form, ‘Aureomarginata’, has oval-shaped, narrow leaves edged in gold.
It’s slow-growing and, as a result, not a cheap plant to buy. It’s also not suitable for containers, preferring a free-draining, rich humus soil and a sheltered position. To enjoy the fragrance to its maximum, plant daphnes near a garden seat or entrance door.
Prune sparingly, as daphnes are very susceptible to dieback and also resent any disturbance, such as being uprooted and moved. If there are any misplaced branches, you may cut back or lightly trim after flowering to maintain a good bushy habit.
For deeper-coloured varieties, choose the vibrant Daphne Mezereum for early spring blooms, or for later flowers try Daphne Retusa. If your garden is shady but you’d still like a daphne, you can opt for the creamy- green flowers on Daphne Pontica.
Daphne Odora has to be one of the most intensely scented early flowering evergreen shrubs that herald the joys of spring. Its somewhat misshapen branches hold balls or clusters of highly scented small pink flowers, while the slightly hardier form, ‘Aureomarginata’, has oval-shaped, narrow leaves edged in gold.
It’s slow-growing and, as a result, not a cheap plant to buy. It’s also not suitable for containers, preferring a free-draining, rich humus soil and a sheltered position. To enjoy the fragrance to its maximum, plant daphnes near a garden seat or entrance door.
Prune sparingly, as daphnes are very susceptible to dieback and also resent any disturbance, such as being uprooted and moved. If there are any misplaced branches, you may cut back or lightly trim after flowering to maintain a good bushy habit.
For deeper-coloured varieties, choose the vibrant Daphne Mezereum for early spring blooms, or for later flowers try Daphne Retusa. If your garden is shady but you’d still like a daphne, you can opt for the creamy- green flowers on Daphne Pontica.
Please the bees with lavender
Lavandula is an essential ingredient of a scented garden, whether you plan to enjoy walking along a path flanked with bushes of this wonderful woody shrub, stroking its blooms, or watch the bees go mad for its nectar-rich flowers.
This Mediterranean plant is drought-tolerant and therefore good for gravel gardens and even coastal ones. Lavenders thrive in poor, moderately fertile soil and need good drainage. In heavier soils, the plants will need replacing after a few years. As they don’t break readily from old wood, if they’re not pruned after flowering in late summer, then it’s down to the garden centre for more!
When growing lavender as a hedge, try to plant on a ridge so the shrubs’ bases don’t get waterlogged. Space each plant around 30cm apart or, for larger specimens, 45cm apart.
Two of the most hardy and popular varieties of lavender include Lavandula Angustifolia ‘Hidcote’, which has compact, grey-green foliage and dense, dark violet flowers, and Lavandula Angustifolia ‘Munstead’, which has dense, mid-green foliage and lavender-blue flowers. There are pink and white flowering lavenders, too, as well as the French Stoechas and Pedunculata cultivars, which have colourful bracts that resemble rabbit ears. These varieties tend to be less hardy and so are ideal for containers.
Discover how to grow a bee-friendly garden
Lavandula is an essential ingredient of a scented garden, whether you plan to enjoy walking along a path flanked with bushes of this wonderful woody shrub, stroking its blooms, or watch the bees go mad for its nectar-rich flowers.
This Mediterranean plant is drought-tolerant and therefore good for gravel gardens and even coastal ones. Lavenders thrive in poor, moderately fertile soil and need good drainage. In heavier soils, the plants will need replacing after a few years. As they don’t break readily from old wood, if they’re not pruned after flowering in late summer, then it’s down to the garden centre for more!
When growing lavender as a hedge, try to plant on a ridge so the shrubs’ bases don’t get waterlogged. Space each plant around 30cm apart or, for larger specimens, 45cm apart.
Two of the most hardy and popular varieties of lavender include Lavandula Angustifolia ‘Hidcote’, which has compact, grey-green foliage and dense, dark violet flowers, and Lavandula Angustifolia ‘Munstead’, which has dense, mid-green foliage and lavender-blue flowers. There are pink and white flowering lavenders, too, as well as the French Stoechas and Pedunculata cultivars, which have colourful bracts that resemble rabbit ears. These varieties tend to be less hardy and so are ideal for containers.
Discover how to grow a bee-friendly garden
Max out midsummer scent with orange blossom
Philadelphus, or mock orange as it’s commonly called, has to be one of the most lovely scents in the summer garden.
While it’s not the prettiest of deciduous shrubs throughout most of the year, the profusion of white flowers that cover the woody stems is a magnet for bees and will fill the garden with a sweet, orange blossom fragrance from June to July. Varieties include Philadelphus ‘Belle Etoile’, which has single white flowers with a purple throat; ‘Virginal’, which has wonderful double, fragrant white flowers; and ‘Aureus’, which has golden foliage that will add a splash of light to a dark border.
Choisya Ternata is often confused with Philadelphus in name, as it’s commonly known as Mexican orange blossom. A highly scented shrub with aromatic, glossy, dark green leaves, it produces star-shaped scented flowers in full sun to partial shade. It’s fully hardy and likes fertile, well-drained soil.
Philadelphus, or mock orange as it’s commonly called, has to be one of the most lovely scents in the summer garden.
While it’s not the prettiest of deciduous shrubs throughout most of the year, the profusion of white flowers that cover the woody stems is a magnet for bees and will fill the garden with a sweet, orange blossom fragrance from June to July. Varieties include Philadelphus ‘Belle Etoile’, which has single white flowers with a purple throat; ‘Virginal’, which has wonderful double, fragrant white flowers; and ‘Aureus’, which has golden foliage that will add a splash of light to a dark border.
Choisya Ternata is often confused with Philadelphus in name, as it’s commonly known as Mexican orange blossom. A highly scented shrub with aromatic, glossy, dark green leaves, it produces star-shaped scented flowers in full sun to partial shade. It’s fully hardy and likes fertile, well-drained soil.
Wake up a winter garden with witch hazel
Hamamelis is commonly known as witch hazel and can be grown as a shrub or tree, making it a good choice for a small garden. During the bleak days of January, the garden can look quite stark, but the arching winter blooms of the Hamamelis are intoxicating, with their heavenly scent and colours ranging from the palest of yellow through to fiery orange and deep crimson, which glow like embers in the garden.
This is a plant that should be treasured, and cutting branches and bringing them into the home will also fill the house with perfume and winter sunshine.
Hamemalis prefer an acid soil, and are slow-growing and therefore expensive. They do well in partial shade, so are ideal in a woodland border. My own favourite is Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Jelena’, with its coppery orange flowers.
Another similar deciduous winter flowering shrub that you can cut and bring inside for winter arrangements is Chimonanthus Praecox or wintersweet. The dried flowers of the winter sweet can be used in the same way you’d use lavender to scent linen.
Hamamelis is commonly known as witch hazel and can be grown as a shrub or tree, making it a good choice for a small garden. During the bleak days of January, the garden can look quite stark, but the arching winter blooms of the Hamamelis are intoxicating, with their heavenly scent and colours ranging from the palest of yellow through to fiery orange and deep crimson, which glow like embers in the garden.
This is a plant that should be treasured, and cutting branches and bringing them into the home will also fill the house with perfume and winter sunshine.
Hamemalis prefer an acid soil, and are slow-growing and therefore expensive. They do well in partial shade, so are ideal in a woodland border. My own favourite is Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Jelena’, with its coppery orange flowers.
Another similar deciduous winter flowering shrub that you can cut and bring inside for winter arrangements is Chimonanthus Praecox or wintersweet. The dried flowers of the winter sweet can be used in the same way you’d use lavender to scent linen.
Channel classic English garden style with sweet peas
Lathyrus Odoratus, as the latter part of the name suggests (odoratus being the Latin word for fragrant or perfumed), are our most fragrant annual flowering plants. You might know them better as sweet peas. They are easily grown from seed, either directly into the soil in March or April, or sown in the greenhouse and transplanted as young plants.
Sweet peas look best scrambling up a wigwam made from pea or hazel sticks, or against a potting shed or wooden fence. The more you cut the blooms before they produce seed pods, the more flowers you will have.
For the best scent, choose varieties such as ‘Matucana’, which is descended from the original wild sweet pea and smells wonderful; ‘Albutt Blue’, which has subtle blueish-purple flowers and a fantastic scent; or ‘Karen Louise’, which is not only good for the vase, with its strong stems, but also has a powerful scent, with sprays of pale lavender flowers. Perhaps the best of all for fragrance, though, is the aptly named ‘High Scent’, which has delicate white flowers edged in purple carried on strong stems.
Explore an inspiring, wildlife-friendly English garden
Lathyrus Odoratus, as the latter part of the name suggests (odoratus being the Latin word for fragrant or perfumed), are our most fragrant annual flowering plants. You might know them better as sweet peas. They are easily grown from seed, either directly into the soil in March or April, or sown in the greenhouse and transplanted as young plants.
Sweet peas look best scrambling up a wigwam made from pea or hazel sticks, or against a potting shed or wooden fence. The more you cut the blooms before they produce seed pods, the more flowers you will have.
For the best scent, choose varieties such as ‘Matucana’, which is descended from the original wild sweet pea and smells wonderful; ‘Albutt Blue’, which has subtle blueish-purple flowers and a fantastic scent; or ‘Karen Louise’, which is not only good for the vase, with its strong stems, but also has a powerful scent, with sprays of pale lavender flowers. Perhaps the best of all for fragrance, though, is the aptly named ‘High Scent’, which has delicate white flowers edged in purple carried on strong stems.
Explore an inspiring, wildlife-friendly English garden
Scent two seasons with sweet box
Sweet box, or Sarcococca Confusa, is becoming more and more popular with garden designers planning seasonal planting.
This suckering evergreen shrub (seen here without flowers) is better planted as a large specimen in a border, as a low hedge, or in groups of three, five or more, and positioned somewhere you can enjoy the scent. This very obliging plant produces long-leaved stamens of small tubular and highly scented white flowers in winter and spring, followed by red, purple or black berries. It will tolerate shade and prefers well-drained, moist soil.
Sarcococca Ruscifolia var. Chinensis, a smaller variety than Confusa, is often used by flower arrangers, as the stems last for a couple of weeks in water. For narrow, graceful leaves, try Sarcococca Hookeriana var. Digyna –for purple stems there’s a cultivar aptly called ‘Purple Stem’.
Sweet box, or Sarcococca Confusa, is becoming more and more popular with garden designers planning seasonal planting.
This suckering evergreen shrub (seen here without flowers) is better planted as a large specimen in a border, as a low hedge, or in groups of three, five or more, and positioned somewhere you can enjoy the scent. This very obliging plant produces long-leaved stamens of small tubular and highly scented white flowers in winter and spring, followed by red, purple or black berries. It will tolerate shade and prefers well-drained, moist soil.
Sarcococca Ruscifolia var. Chinensis, a smaller variety than Confusa, is often used by flower arrangers, as the stems last for a couple of weeks in water. For narrow, graceful leaves, try Sarcococca Hookeriana var. Digyna –for purple stems there’s a cultivar aptly called ‘Purple Stem’.
Perfume your exterior with wisteria
Wisteria cannot fail to impress, with its long, trailing and heavenly scented blooms in shades of blue, purple, pink and white.
Wisteria is a deciduous, twining climber that prefers a sunny position and can be trained as a standalone tree or up a pergola or the wall of a house. The plants can take three to four years to produce their first blooms, so make sure when you buy one that the plant has been grown from a cutting or by grafting, rather than from seed, as these flower less reliably. (You can tell whether the plant has been grafted by looking down the stem and seeing if there’s a visible bulge of the graft union near the base of the stem.)
The most widely planted variety is Wisteria Sinensis, which has purple-lilac flowers. The flowers of the ‘Formosa’ variety are more violet in colour, while ‘Amethyst’ has clusters of highly scented red-flushed violet-blue flowers.
To ensure your wisteria flowers annually, prune the twining stems twice a year, once in the summer around July or August – making sure you remove the whippy green shoots of the current year’s growth to five or six leaves – and again in January or February, when you should cut the same growth back to two or three buds.
Wisteria cannot fail to impress, with its long, trailing and heavenly scented blooms in shades of blue, purple, pink and white.
Wisteria is a deciduous, twining climber that prefers a sunny position and can be trained as a standalone tree or up a pergola or the wall of a house. The plants can take three to four years to produce their first blooms, so make sure when you buy one that the plant has been grown from a cutting or by grafting, rather than from seed, as these flower less reliably. (You can tell whether the plant has been grafted by looking down the stem and seeing if there’s a visible bulge of the graft union near the base of the stem.)
The most widely planted variety is Wisteria Sinensis, which has purple-lilac flowers. The flowers of the ‘Formosa’ variety are more violet in colour, while ‘Amethyst’ has clusters of highly scented red-flushed violet-blue flowers.
To ensure your wisteria flowers annually, prune the twining stems twice a year, once in the summer around July or August – making sure you remove the whippy green shoots of the current year’s growth to five or six leaves – and again in January or February, when you should cut the same growth back to two or three buds.
Pick a classic rose
What can be better than walking into a garden and being lifted into another world by the heavenly scent and blowsy blooms of our most popular garden plant, the rose.
There are so many varieties of rose to choose from it can be quite mind-boggling when visiting a garden centre; pick from climbers, ramblers, shrubs, patio and ground-cover cultivars. Roses are deep-rooted plants that can survive on the moisture in the soil as long as this is well drained and you include some well-rotted manure or compost when planting.
For an easily available scented climber that’s healthy and repeat-flowering, opt for ‘New Dawn’, which has cluster of silvery blush-pink flowers and healthy, glossy foliage, or try the more vigorous ‘Madame Alfred Carrière’, with its large, sweetly scented, pink-tinted creamy-white cupped blooms.
For shrub roses, try ‘Boscobel’, which has perfectly formed, rich salmon upright blooms with a smell of myrrh; it’s repeat-flowering and disease resistant.
Alternatively, wonderful, deep velvety crimson rose ‘Munstead Wood’ is ideal for pots and containers and smells of blackberries, damsons and blueberries.
What can be better than walking into a garden and being lifted into another world by the heavenly scent and blowsy blooms of our most popular garden plant, the rose.
There are so many varieties of rose to choose from it can be quite mind-boggling when visiting a garden centre; pick from climbers, ramblers, shrubs, patio and ground-cover cultivars. Roses are deep-rooted plants that can survive on the moisture in the soil as long as this is well drained and you include some well-rotted manure or compost when planting.
For an easily available scented climber that’s healthy and repeat-flowering, opt for ‘New Dawn’, which has cluster of silvery blush-pink flowers and healthy, glossy foliage, or try the more vigorous ‘Madame Alfred Carrière’, with its large, sweetly scented, pink-tinted creamy-white cupped blooms.
For shrub roses, try ‘Boscobel’, which has perfectly formed, rich salmon upright blooms with a smell of myrrh; it’s repeat-flowering and disease resistant.
Alternatively, wonderful, deep velvety crimson rose ‘Munstead Wood’ is ideal for pots and containers and smells of blackberries, damsons and blueberries.
Frame an entrance with viburnum
Some viburnums look rather unassuming, but this remains one of the easiest highly scented shrubs to grow.
One of the most fragrant varieties is Viburnum x Burkwoodii, which has domed clusters of fragrant white blooms and glossy green leaves, and flowers right through the month of April. Viburnum x Bodnantense ‘Dawn’ has fragrant pink flowers from late autumn to spring and can grow up to 10ft. Viburnums really don’t need much pruning; they are mainly pruned for shape, and older shrubs can be rejuvenated if cut to the ground, leaving the sturdier shoots in place.
Viburnum Tinus is often grown as a standard and, although it doesn’t smell as fragrant as other varieties, it does flower often. You might choose it instead of bay or other evergreen standard shrubs either side of a door.
TELL US…
What is your all-time favourite garden scent? Share your tips in the Comments below.
Some viburnums look rather unassuming, but this remains one of the easiest highly scented shrubs to grow.
One of the most fragrant varieties is Viburnum x Burkwoodii, which has domed clusters of fragrant white blooms and glossy green leaves, and flowers right through the month of April. Viburnum x Bodnantense ‘Dawn’ has fragrant pink flowers from late autumn to spring and can grow up to 10ft. Viburnums really don’t need much pruning; they are mainly pruned for shape, and older shrubs can be rejuvenated if cut to the ground, leaving the sturdier shoots in place.
Viburnum Tinus is often grown as a standard and, although it doesn’t smell as fragrant as other varieties, it does flower often. You might choose it instead of bay or other evergreen standard shrubs either side of a door.
TELL US…
What is your all-time favourite garden scent? Share your tips in the Comments below.
Trachelospermum Jasminoides is a self-twining, highly scented, woody evergreen shrub with white star-shaped flowers and dark green, lance-shaped leaves. Best grown on a sunny wall, this plant makes a good climber around a door, where you can enjoy its heavenly scent as you brush past it walking in and out. Like most plants grown against a wall, it will need support from a trellis or wire.
In the autumn, the leaves turn red to purple, but a harsh winter or frost will lead to stem dieback and foliage damage. Trachelospermum prefers a fertile soil and sheltered position, much like the other popular and more delicately scented climber, Jasminum Officinale.
Try to restrict pruning and be careful, as cutting the stems produces a sticky white sap that can give some people a skin rash.