Designing the Scented Garden

Choosing plants for their fragrance.

Oenothera macrocarpa
Item # 72150 		Oenothera macrocarpa
Missouri Evening Primrose

each $7.99
3 to 6 $7.79
7 or more $7.59
Berlandiera lyrata
Item # 25390 		Berlandiera lyrata
Chocolate Flower

each $5.79
3 to 6 $5.59
7 or more $5.29
  • Topic: Fragrant Gardens
  • Author: Katherine O'Brien
  • Keywords: scent, fragrance, Garden Design, gardens
  • Date: January 2003

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When considering fragrance in the garden, you’re apt to envision azaleas in the warm humid climates of southeastern United States. Or masses of roses and lilies in the temperate Mediterranean climes. But a landscape filled with fragrance from a wide variety of plants is also possible in New Mexico. Think of the warm, pungent aroma of Sagebrush interspersed with the sweet smell of Pinon or Ponderosa Pine.

The Southwest has many of its own special scents, but a fragrant garden can also be created easily by inserting annuals and perennial flowers into existing shrub beds. Large pots can also be filled with plants for instant fragrance.

Many perennial flowers known for their scents are:

  • Chocolate Flower
  • Lilies
  • Soapwort
  • Creeping Phlox
  • Garden Phlox
  • Hostas
  • Dianthus
  • Sweet Violets
  • Peonies
  • Candytuft
  • Wallflower
  • Four O’Clocks
  • Evening Primrose
  • Dame’s Violet
  • Forget-Me-Nots
  • Passion Flower
  • Bee Balm
  • Lupine

Annual flowers that are particularly fragrant are:

  • Sweet Peas
  • Stock
  • Petunias
  • Dahlberg Daisies
  • Nicotiana
  • English Primrose
  • Dianthus
  • Miniature Carnations
  • Sweet Alyssum

Also, bulbs can be planted throughout the landscape for fragrance. Some wonderfully scented bulbs include:

  • Narcissus
  • Hyacinths
  • Crocus
  • Snowdrops
  • Daylilies
  • Tulips
  • Iris

As with most Southwestern garden adventures, it is important to choose or alter the site to achieve the optimum in fragrance. It is the heat that brings out the scents, so warm south and west facing walls can be used to absorb the day’s heat, which increases the build-up of fragrance in flowers and leaves. The plants will then surrender their scent as humidity increases with nightfall. Plant scents are also detected right after plants have been watered, in the mornings or in the evenings.

To benefit from plant fragrances, place plants where they’ll be easy to smell: under your windows, near the patio (or on it, in pots), or within sniffing distance of your garden paths. Protect the scented garden from wind, as it will quickly disperse the delicate plant fragrances.

Many plants have foliage that greatly add significant fragrance to any garden. Some are:

  • Lavenders
  • Catmint
  • Rosemary
  • Russian Sage
  • Artemesias
  • Santolina
  • Salvia
  • Lemon Verbena
  • scented Geraniums

Thyme makes a wonderful fragrant groundcover, and all culinary herbs are fragrant, especially to the touch. Herbs planted throughout shrub and flowerbeds become useful, hardy, and fragrant groundcovers.

A towering tree full of fragrant flowers is a rare but special treat. Catalpa and Linden trees, both reaching 40 feet, have intensely fragrant flowers that can permeate a whole garden. Other fragrant trees for Santa Fe gardens are the popular Amur Maple, Golden Chain Tree, and Purple Robe Locust and the lesser known, Yellowwood. The flowering crabapples and cherries also abound with fragrance. Fruit trees are usually not planted for their fragrance, but the light fragrance of their blooms herald the coming of spring like no other event

Lilacs are a signature plant for Santa Fe, where historic neighborhoods are filled with the bloom and fragrance of Lilacs in early May. Equally large, the Viburnums, are also fragrant, particularly Pink Dawn, Allegheny, Judd, and Burkwood. Spanish Broom is both xeric and intensely fragrant.

Some scotch brooms are also quite fragrant: Lena, Lilac Time and Minstead. Daphne ‘Carol Mackie’ and Star Magnolia both have wonderfully scented flowers but require more acidic soil.

Fragrant shrubs that are more adaptable to alkaline soil are:

  • Winter Jasmine
  • Shrub Honeysuckle
  • Mock Orange
  • Currants
  • Western Sand Cherry
  • Witch Hazel
  • Curry Plant
  • Butterfly Bush

For guaranteed fragrance in the garden all summer long plant English Roses. Their inventor, David Austin, bred the line of roses with fragrance in mind, using old roses for fragrance and hybrid roses for their ever-blooming quality. The wonderful result is old fashioned, fragrant flowers that bloom all season. Another major rose breeder who valued fragrance was Griffith Buck, as indicated by the large number of his hardy shrub roses that are quite fragrant.

Also, many hybrid roses have wonderful fragrance:

  • Mister Lincoln
  • Double Delight
  • Angel Face
  • Iceberg
  • Chrysler Imperial
  • George Burns
  • Scentimental

Fragrance can also be Wisteria flowing over the entrance portal. Fragrance can be Akebia, Chocolate Vine, discreetly decorating an arbor. It can be Goldflame Honeysuckle weaving through a woven wire fence or Clematis montana screening a window. Vines can add a lot of fragrance, yet take little ground space.

Fragrance adds another dimension to the landscape. A garden may be pleasing to the eye, but an unexpected fragrance will enhance its value. Special fans of fragrant landscapes are people with limited eyesight and young children, with their wonder of all things natural.