Unforgettable garden fragrances - includes related articles on flowers

Sunset, August, 1996 by Jim McCausland

A guide to 18 scented flowers our readers can't forget

LILAC

"Every spring my aunt would invite my mom and me to drive out to her farm and collect armfuls of lavender lilacs to tote back home, and the scent floated throughout our house."

- Ardice Eggert, Glendale, Arizona

Spring. Common, or French, lilac (Syringa vulgaris) is a shrub that does best where winters are cold (Sunset climate zones 1-11), but there are varieties (most called Descanso hybrids) for mild-winter climates (zones 12-16, 18-22). Nurseries usually carry varieties best suited for the local climate.

When we asked readers to name their favorite garden fragrances, we outpouring of responses that rolled in by the score from 15 states, Canada, and Mexico.

We heard from one woman whose long bout with amnesia was cured by an unexpected encounter with fragrant hyacinths, and from a couple whose lifelong romance was linked to a certain honeysuckle plant (when it was cut down. the man died).

Sifting through these odes to more than 150 different plants. we distilled readers' favorites down to the essential few on these pages. Grow them in your garden and breathe deep. But keep your ears open, too: when scented flowers bloom. you'll probably notice a certain sentimental drift in your conversations.

Walking under the Hall's honeysuckle growing over the front porch of my house, a friend stopped suddenly and said, "I'm 10 years old again." Years from now, my daughter will probably stroll under another honeysuckle in some distant place, stop for a moment, and say the same thing. Such is the power of plant fragrances to insinuate themselves deeply into our pasts. and our futures, too.

JASMINE AND JESSAMINE

"That sultry, spicy, damp smell wafting into a tropical bedroom is without par. I have been romanced by night-blooming jasmine."

- Cecelia Smith, Honaunau, Hawaii

Spring/summer. Most of the plants in this group have a sweet, rather heavy fragrance.

* Night jessamine (Cestrum nocturnum, zones 13, 16-24), a shrub native to the West Indies, is the "night-blooming jasmine" described above. Its scent is powerful, too powerful for some. ("We used to call it night-blooming asthma," wrote Margaret Harris of Albany, California.) Plant it near a window so its scent can drift into the house on a summer evening.

* True jasmine (Jasminum grandiflorum, J. officinale, J. polyanthum; zones 5-9, 12-24) includes semideciduous and evergreen vines. Spanish jasmine (J. grandiflorum) and poet's jasmine (J. officinale) flower all summer; J. polyanthum (shown at left) blooms from early spring through summer.

* Star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides, zones 8-24)is a common ground cover in California and the Southwest, but in the Pacific Northwest it's sold as an espaliered summer pot plant. Flowers are most strongly fragrant in the evening.

ROSE

"The smell of roses is life.... My memories soar back to my grandmother's little rose garden I used to enjoy as a child."

- Jerri Johnson, Aloha, Oregon

Summer. Few plants have been as intensively bred as roses. One result of the breeding is that some varieties are heavily scented, while others have no fragrance at all. For this reason, the best time to buy these plants is in summer, when you can smell the roses. Different roses grow well in different zones. The best bet is to buy plants from a nursery that has a strong interest in roses.

Reader favorites include 'Electron', 'Fragrant Cloud', 'Fragrant Hour', 'Fragrant Memory', 'Garden Fragrance', 'Mister Lincoln', 'New Dawn', 'Nymphenburg', 'Perfume Delight', R. rugosa 'Hansa', 'Sunsprite', and 'Sutter's Gold'. 'Mikado' is shown at left.

DAPHNE

"The sweet odor of the daphne [is] powerful on damp mornings and subtle in the dry afternoons."

- Father Steve Norcross, Lebanon, Oregon

Winter/spring. Daphne odora, an evergreen shrub, grows in zones 4 through 10, 12, and 14 through 24, producing strongly fragrant clusters of pink flowers at the ends of its branches. D. odora 'Marginata' is shown. It doesn't take many daphne flowers to fill a room with sweet, almost citrusy fragrance. But daphne can be tricky to grow: the plant demands good drainage and, for some reason, often seems to thrive beside concrete walkways.

HONEYSUCKLE

"Their fragrance is. . .especially noticeable during the still of the night. Our master bedroom abuts the rear yard, and with the windows open, we never want to exhale!"

- Naomi Steele, Seattle

Spring/summer. Hall's honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica 'Halliana', zones 2-24), shown here, is probably the most popular of many wonderful honeysuckle species and varieties. Its sweetly scented white flowers, which grown on a 15-foot vine, change to yellow as they age. Use it as a ground cover or climbing vine, and plant it close to a path, window, or entry so you can enjoy its spring and summer flowers.

Giant Burmese honeysuckle (L. hildebrandiana, zones 9, 14-17, 19-24) produces huge, white fragrant tubular flowers on fast-growing vines. It's a good choice for mild-climate gardens.

Heliotrope

"Its heavy, sweet fragrance evokes memories of high button shoes and bustles."