Anyone else interested in scented plants?

I love it too, and it's got through several winters in my garden - but very marginal!

Oh yes, pelargonium tomentosum. I used to have a massive potful of green velvet minty leaves, sensual heaven, but I lost it a few years ago. MUST replace it.

 

Madahlia, Vernons Geraniums (an excellent family firm which does mail order) stocks P. tomentosum, along with many other scented varieties:-

http://www.geraniumsuk.com/geraniums-pelargoniums/upright/scented-leaf

I love heliotropes but it's getting harder and harder to find decent ones, which is a pity because I find it difficult to overwinter them successfully. Hayloft Plants stocks 'Princess Marina' (not to be confused with the miserable bedding variety, 'Marine') which is ok, although not the best I've grown.

http://www.hayloft-plants.co.uk/Search.aspx?search=heliotropium+princess+marina+

 

PS I seem to remember that Gertrude Jekyll described P. tomentosum as 'thick as a fairy's blanket'. It is very tactile!

 

Speaking of Nemesia John.....i bought a dozen plants Nemesia Fruticans for my pots and baskets,never had them before....i put them in the GH whilst i was waiting for the weather to warm up and the next day when i went in the smell was beautiful....i didn't know they were scented ,so a double bonus i'm going to try and grow shed loads of them next year.....

 

Thanks for the pic, John. Might give things a go. The trouble is that I've really used up all my space twice over. Only the fittest survive in my bijou jungle-ette. I'd love to have space to grow nice swathes of things. Preferably in a garden with no slugs or snails. Went out yesterday after a thunderstorm and the place was heaving with them. It was like a biblical plague. Things squished underfoot with every step. I ran in screaming.

Yes, you can be overprotective with plants as well as children, with the same miserable results. My son has completed his last exam and has spent the day trying to gather enough strength to brush his teeth and tidy his room. Epic fail. Let's hope the exams are ok.

 

ive got a cytisus racemosus which gives out a heavely lemon scent and i have grown lots of night scented stock this yr(darrans favorite) which is just starting to flower,i dont have the best sense of smell but reading this thread made me feel like i was walking in a florists shop where mixed scents are strong and unavoidable but i never know what they are
Ive got so much googling to do now and plants to add to my list gang xx

 

Yes joolz - it's just like a virtual florisist's shop being part of this thread. So lovely to read today.

Clare, it sounds as though you and I have almost the smallest plots on GC in which we grow the things we treasure.

I have a petite little hanging basket with a trailing viola Creamy Pink and Nemesia Vanilla lady. If I hang on the the back of the garden bench, I can just about lean over and sniff it.

 

here are a few that I saved on my favourites, and found this from searching forums ... some of these may not be fully hardy, but could grow in a conservatory ... these are what members of forums rated as very fragrant ... in no particular order (the list is long):

Michelia Alba

cestrum nocturnum

Osmanthus fragrans

Lonicera fragrantissima

Chimonanthus praecox
Elaeagnus pungens
Gardenia jasminoides

4 O'Clocks

Sweet almond verbana

butterfly ginger
mock orange

gardenias
citrus

flowering tobacco, nicotiana sp

brunfelsia americana and nitida

brugmansias

brassavola nodosa

magnolia grandiflora

trachelospermum jasminoides

murreyas and citrus (similar scent and strength)
plumerias

Rosa rugosa (growing in huge drifts )

Clethra alnifolia (Summersweet or Sweet Pepperbush)

Eleagnus x ebbengi

Daphne odora

lilac

Brassavola nodosa

Phalaenopsis Bright Peacock 'Sweet Fragrance'

Phalaenopsis bellina

Lonicera japonica 'Halliana'

Hoya obscura

Jasminum sambac

Tilia cordata

Viburnum carlesii
Rosa 'Madame Plantier'
Rosa eglanteria

Polianthus tuberosa (esp. cultivar 'Single Mexican')

Edgeworhia chrysantha

calacanthus (sweet shrub)

Tabernaemontanas

Alstonia angustiloba (milk flower or pulai tree)

Viola odorata - Sweet Violet

Evening scented stock

Lilies of the Valley

Brugmansia Charles Grimaldi

ylang ylang

Harlequin Glorybower

 

and here is another link that I saved on my favourites

http://ourgardengang.tripod.com/fragrant_plants.htm

 

Thanks for the list, *dim*.

The 'Four O'Clock Plant' - aka the 'Marvel of Peru' and 'Miribilis jalapa' is so-called because it opens its flowers in the afternoon. It was popular with Victorian gardeners but seems to have gone out of fashion now. I grew it from seed one year; it's a fun pot plant.

Jasminium sambac is a gorgeous plant for a conservatory (Victoria could grow it outdoors) but it isn't hardy outdoors here. I believe it's the jasmine which is used in perfumery.

Cestrum nocturnum isn't hardy either, but Cestrum parqui is sturdier and will usually survive cold weather, although hard winters knock it back severely. It has greenish flowers which smell a bit rank by day, but wonderful late in the evening.

I've got Magnolia grandiflora, a very large, grand shrub suited in scale to the walls of stately homes, growing in my tiny garden. Well, it was a present from my Mum, so what could I do? Fortunately it doesn't seem to mind being hacked about a bit. It has nice evergreen laurel-like leaves and huge white waxy flowers the size of dinner plates. They don't last long, unfortunately, but I always know when the plant is in bloom because there's a powerful waft of wonderful perfume in the air. I don't know how to describe the smell. Like an exotic fruit, perhaps. I think there's a tinge of banana in it. The shrub doesn't like my chalky soil and the leaves quickly turn yellow if I don't dose it with sequestrine regularly.

The smell for which Rosa eglanteria, the sweetbriar, is renowed comes not so much from the flowers as the leaves. I've heard the smell described as 'stewed apples'. It's a gangly plant which is suited to informal places. At Sissinghurst it's used as hedging around a cottage.

Lonicera fragrantissma is a shrubby, rather than climbing, honeysuckle. It doesn't have much of a shape and is generally a bit of a gangling mess. The little creamy white flowers smell lovely but, since they are produced in winter, it needs to be planted somewhere you might actually get a whiff - next to a path, for instance. Sarcococca confusa - a lovely, neat little evergreen shrub - blooms at roughly the same time but its smell is much more penetrating. There's something privet-ty about it, but much sweeter and a lot nicer.

 

Nice one! Attagirl, no pussyfooting around! Can't be doing with mimsying around with size-appropriate planting myself.

 

Magnolia grandiflora is on my wish list for when I have a large garden, just love them

 

Hans' post about a rose he discovered in his parents' garden has reminded me of 'Mme Isaac Pereire', an old Bourbon rose which I once grew in a former garden. It has very large, blowsy flowers which curl back at the edges and is a vivid crimson in colour. The smell is wonderful. You can grow it as a shortish climber and it would be a great rose to train around a front door.

 

Madahhlia just been looking through all the lists of scented plants everyones posted and think you've just solved a mystery , I was wondering round in our little wood trying to figure out where this amazing scent was coming from , I now realise it was the fringecups, never knew they even had a scent