Hello everyone and happy Spring ! ( i hope if this cold weather would leave us alone !)
I walked into our wholesaler yesterday and spent one whole hour in a fragrant greenhouse . Funny enough that is where the birds were too ! The whole greenhouse was full of birds( they like the good stuff too !)
To me when i arrive at someones house there has to be fragrance somewhere hopefully by the time you get to the front door ….
Can I share with you my thoughts of how important it is to have fragrance in your garden especially in your enterance ? Okay lets read together ! I looovvveeeee fragrance ! ( my favorite for fragrance – honey suckle , yasmine , and sarococca ruscifolia (
Most garden plants look good, but how many offer a scent as captivating as their appearance? And how often do we actually detect a scent? A kind breeze sometimes brings one to our notice, or we bury our face into flowers for a whiff. Make fragrance a daily delight by lining a garden path with gorgeous, scented plants. The key is to use a variety that releases its perfume at different times of the year. Imagine your garden rising and falling through the seasons, with flowers, foliage, and scents ever changing. You’ll find yourself stopping to smell the garden every time you walk out the door, so you might want to kiss punctuality good-bye.
especially the beds around the deck and near the windows, where I can catch the scents on the breeze while I’m relaxing outside or while I’m inside doing the dishes. The plants I’ve used in the design of my fragrant beds require no special treatment in my garden, and all are hardy to at least Zone 5.
The potency of flower scents varies greatly, so I consider the strength of a fragrance when deciding where to put a plant. I place plants with subtle fragrances close to the house, but strongly perfumed ones usually find homes farther away. For example, I plant sweet peas nearby, but I plant the heavily perfumed ‘Star Gazer’ lily in a more distant bed so I get only a whiff of its scent on a breeze.
Just as I place plants based on the potency of their fragrance, I’m also careful when planting more than one fragrant plant in the same area. Although many roses and shrubs have such soft scents that they can mingle, I choose to err on the side of caution and plant different fragrances in separate areas. For example, I planted my lilacs and peonies on opposite sides of the house. At the same time, I try to stagger bloom times so that each scent can be savored individually, and fragrance can be spread throughout the season. My viburnum blooms well before my mock orange, which blooms before the lilies. By paying attention to bloom times, I keep these strong fragrances from clashing.
It is also wise to take advantage of the prevailing wind pattern when placing plants. I am fortunate to have wind flow from front to back and crosswise on my property, so I enjoy fragrances no matter where I plant. But if the wind blew primarily from one direction I would plant upwind in a spot where the scents would float to me on the breeze.
