Fragrant flowers make
the garden memorable. Fragrant leaves that extend their perfume to
your clothing as you pass and by turn extend the garden's impact well
beyond its borders. Choosing the fragrant flowers that fit your olfactory
taste is critical. Many fragrant plants have as many devotee's as
critics. The fragrance of a garden will change through the seasons
as one fragrant flower blooms and then is replaced by another as it passes
out of season. I love an early morning under Eucalyptus, the
humidity seems to heighten the fragrance of the fallen leaves. The
warm sun that shines on a bank of Sages awakens my childhood
memories.
Plant your old fashioned rose where you almost can't help but put your
nose in the flower. Generate some mystery by placing the fragrant
flowers of the narcissus far enough that the powerful fragrance can
draw you to its source. Or plant the night blooming jasmine with its
fragrant flowers for an evening's repose with a secluded table and make
for an evening garden retreat. For some, just the thought of
another rosemary filled garden is enough to make them run for cover but an
herb garden with the wealth of fragrant foliage scents can be a great
place for pondering the imponderables, or just a good place to get some
outrageous flavors to add to the morning's eggs.
I have made a point to not only buy
roses that are beautiful, but also to make my selection based on smell.
I made the mistake of planting Tagetes lemonii too close to our entry
walkway for peace in our family. The fragrant foliage passed that
scent to all that walked through the gate and brushed against the
leaves. It is not a bad fragrance, just way
to powerful for everybody in the house to smell like it. When I planted the Voodoo Lily, that
fragrant flower smelled like rotting fish under the bedroom window, such an uproar.
My feeble excuse that "it wasn't blooming when I got it so how could I
know," didn't get me very far. But scent from the fragrant
flowers of an old fashioned rose, or butterfly
bush, or the moment when the plum tree is humming its loudest with bees is
just bliss. The list includes the plants that pollinated by flies and
other carrion eaters, and are so noted, so that you might not also plant them
where delicate noses will be offended.
