Scent in your garden

[vanozzi]

Of the many things that I enjoy about a garden, scent rates highly.
Daphne Odora seeks me out during the bleakest of winters, Jasminum polyanthum eventually overpowers me in late winter/spring, freesias I would not be without and who could resist brown boronia.I can remember, as a small boy, the boronia sellers, with  baskets overflowing, selling boronia sprigs in the city of Perth (WA).
And  flowering now, on my patio,filling the air with its intoxicating aroma is one of my favourite scented plants, Michelia Figo (Port-wine magnolia).The scent is most noticeable in late afternoon/evening, some say of pineapples, even bananas, but to me it reminds me of that old sweet bubblegum that we had as kids.Tiny flowers packed with a powerful wonderful scent.

What are some of your favourite scented plants?

[Paul T]

Sorry Dude, port wine magnolias make me gag!    I agree with the rest though.  

Add to the list certain Viburnums.  Brown Boronia would be my favourite perfume, at least that immediately springs to mind.  Daphne bhuloa smells like Viburnum carlesii, but much earlier in the season.  As you say, Freesias are glorious as well, and I love the smell of our massive Magnolia soulangeana when in full flower (ours is one of the scented ones thankfully, many of them aren't).  Wisteria is lovely when it first starts, but once it is fully out there is a bit much of the perfume to really enjoy it.  

Actually, one thing I used to love the perfume of was Clematis tangutica.  I had it for years and it smelt of coconut suntan oil..... every time I smelt it I always thought of the beach.  I lost it a few years ago unfortunately, and I have only ever seen it available the one time I bought it, around 13 years ago.

[David Pilling]

Actually, one thing I used to love the perfume of was Clematis tangutica.  I had it for years and it smelt of coconut suntan oil.....

Easy to grow from seed, first year flowering, but I have never tried sniffing it.

[Martin Baxendale]

Right now I'm really enjoying the delicious candy-floss scent of the yellowing autumn leaves of Cercidiphyllum japonicum. I know it's a big tree eventually, but I planted two anyway, one by our front path in the middle of an exisiting hedge to slow its growth down. The sweet sugary smell of the leaves is amazing, and the colour's not bad either.

[Paddy Tobin]

I'm with Paul re the Michelia, a wonderful scent and with Martin with the cercidiphyllum. At present, the best scent in the garden is from Tilia henryana, a lime which is in flower at the moment.

Paddy

[Paul T]

OK, obviously it is just my wife and I that find the Michelia scent nauseating!    I always knew I was special.  

David,

I didn't realise it would flower that quickly from seed.  Then again, I've never seen seed of it (nor gone in search of it either I might add).  I found the original plant at a local nursery that used to specialise in interesting plants many years ago.

[Martin Baxendale]

At present, the best scent in the garden is from Tilia henryana, a lime which is in flower at the moment.

Paddy

Lime blossom is one of my very favourite flower scents, and one of my wife's too (for the scent and for it being the 'national tree' of her home country, Slovakia). The scent must be especially strong and pervasive in the cooler and damper autumn air, compared to the summer flowers. Is autumn flowering the norm for this species? Or just a late flush of flowers?

[maggiepie]

I agree with Paul, I had a port wine magnolia planted at the front of the house in Oz. When it flowered the smell made me feel sick and the tree was around 12foot in height so lots of flowers.
Can't handle the smell of common jasmine either, it gives me a headache.
The loveliest scents in my garden were honeysuckle, freesias, daphne , roses, viburnums, murraya paniculata,( can be very sickly though)  lime and lemon trees ( unfortunately mine attracted huge stinkbugs), philadelphus's my favourite for fragrance but grew huge was philadelphus mexicanus. The other not to be without Osmanthus fragrans.

[Darren]

Out in the garden: Iris 'Jane Phillips' plus assorted Daphne.

Under glass: Conophytum angelicae ssp tetragonum (look  it up). Also an unnamed pink oxalis species from South Africa & Thelymitra 'Sleeping Beauty'.

In a frame and my favourite scented plant of all: Primula reidii

[Ragged Robin]

English Lavender by the path so you brush against it as you walk along and know that bees and butterflies share the same feeling 

Native Honeysuckles over a gate arch as you pass through......

Narcissus and this year Narcissus poeticus in the meadows above Montreux - I couldn't leave the smell was so wonderful in the late afternoon!

[Paddy Tobin]

Martin,

Tilia henryana is an autumn flowering lime, in full flower at present and the flowers, though obvious, are not showy.

Robin, you remind me - with your brushing past lavender - of how I enjoy catmint and lemon balm for the same reason. Lemon balm has been banned from the garden by the head gardener because of its spreading habit. It now grows on the roadside outside our house so that I can still kick it when walking by.

Paddy

[Ragged Robin]

I do empathise with the 'Head Gardener' as lemon balm does seed itself profusely but I love it too and it makes an excellent lemon tea or addition to a hot bath after gardening all day 

[SueG]

I think my favourite scents are Pelegonium triste and Gladiolus tristus. I bought the pelegonium this spring and the scent filled the whole house.

[Rodger Whitlock]

I personally think scent is a very important element to any garden. Convallaria, hamamelis, daphnes, common white jasmine, et al are the backbone of that element in mine. But the one scent that gives me most pleasure is that of Cyclamen hederifolium, a delicate scent very much like convallaria, but one that drifts on the air under some climatic conditions. It's very faint, and you can never pinpoint which of many cyclamen is producing it, but oh my!

[Lesley Cox]

Oh yes, all of the above and add lemon verbena and dozens of other trees. I also love the spicy scent of many small rhododendron leaves and many alpines have lesser but subtle perfumes. I always sniff flowers on a new plant and am often surprised and delighted. Oxalis lobata, for instance is deliciously scented. My most favourite scent of all though is Philadelphus 'Belle Etoile.' Sometimes I DREAM this scent and wake with it still in my nose. Then there's the lovely vanilla-scented Azara (is it microphylla or lanceolata?) which grows behind large Cupressus macrocarpa and so I never see it but come early spring and just for a week or so, the whole garden is filled with the scent. And also many primulas, and have you noticed that the roots of Phlox subulata vars smell of celery?

You've started something here, Paul.