i have had the yellow 4o's and the riotous ones.. they are similar in fragrance..

but the most important thing about the fragrance is that.. wait for it ...

the flowers open... at... 4o'clock ...

you will be let down if you go out every morning.. and hope to get a good strong scent ...

mine are in front of the house.. on the north side ... and they get sun late in the afternoon. and that heat... plus opening at that time.. really sets off a whiff of glory ...

this summer.. with the cold spring .. they seemed to take forever to bloom.. not really putting on much of a show until august ... a bit disappointing in that regard ... but such are the vagaries of mother nature ...

some were dropped seeds from the prior year.. and some were hand sown .... and that did not seem to make a difference ...

ken

How about some nicotiana? N. silvestris gets about 4' tall and is very fragrant. 4 O'clocks are fragrant, but it isn't that noticeable if you're a few feet away from it. It's nice, though. Some stocks are fragrant, but mostly at night, hence the name, night blooming stocks. I have some (don't know what variety but they're tall), and don't notice the aroma unless I hold the flower to my nose.

I believe Stock needs cool weather to bloom and thrive. Check it out before you get set on them. I love stock. There were fields of them on the northern california coast near where I used to live. That climate is so different from Pa 6b. I love our warm nights here.

KR

Sweet Peas are fragrant, and also need cool weather. Some petunias are fragrant, but they may not be among the top annuals for fragrant flowers. Here is another list of fragrant annuals, and another short list. Happy New Year!

ZM

BTW .. 4 o'cks .. are a warm/hot weather bloomer.. which means for me.. up here in z5 MI .. they really dont get blooming until august... mid to late.. depending on how cool spring is ...

so mix with things that bloom earlier ...

and dont forget.. peak fragrance on any of these.. is the dank warm nights of late summer.. when the heady fragrance uses the heat to disperse itself ... early spring scent.. just seems lacking.. probably because you dont want to be sitting out there on the lawn chair in 60 degree weather.. lol.. as compared to a balmy august night ...

my point.. if i had one ... timing of bloom can be important ... dont forget about it ... [also later summer is when your plants are near peak size.. so volume of bloom is peak]

ken

Evening fragrance works for me. I really like the idea of attracting moths at night with them as well. Nicotiana seems intriguing. I just looked them up, and there is a variety called Fragrant Cloud. Has anyone had experience with it? I think it is a hybrid, so do the offspring still have a strong fragrance?

I looked up fragrant petunias and saw something called old-fashioned vining petunias. Again, has anyone grown these? I found it kind of tough to find good pictures of them online. They do sound interesting though.

i thought all petunia.. but for a very few extreme hybrids were fragrant..

the problem is that you have to be falling down drunk to end up with your nose 2 inches from the ground to smell them ...

hence the idea that the most fragrant plants .. usually have some height.. probably to increase air movement.. so you can smell them.. standing up drunk.. lol ...

ken

alyssum is another ground cover.. which when massed in great swathes.. can be very fragrant ....

but instead of afternoon.. its more of a morning thing.. in dead air ... for me anyway ....

it self sows for me.. and i have a 15 by30 foot area covered in it.. with the 4o's growing up thru it ... plus some other things ...

ken

The petunias I used to get at the store never had a fragrance. They were definitely hybrids though. I've found some references to old fashioned vining petunias on here, and they seem to indicate that you can smell them in the evening from a few feet away. I'm hoping other can tell me if that's true or not. Same with Fragrant Cloud nicotiana and it's offspring.

How does alyssum hold up throughout the season? Would it look nice along the edge of a border? I think it would be great for beneficials, so it sounds good too.

Kim

its been a long time since i bought alyssum plugs.. but if memory serves.. those tend to peak out in late summer ...

mine .. being free range seedlings.. are much slower to sprout and grow to size.. and last well thru my entire z5 MI growing season ...

who knew the seeds over wintered here.. i didnt find out.. until i got so lazy.. that i left the dead plant there all winter.. and into late spring.. and realized that the 50 million seedlings under it.. looked suspiciously like alyssum.. lol ... they can be easily moved in spring.. on a rainy day ...

ken

Heliotrope are fragrant; the "old-fashioned" white and blue varieties are touted to be more fragrant, but I only grew those one year and they had about the same fragrance intensity as "Marine" to my nose. Gotta have my heliotrope every season, it's one of my favorite annuals.

re: petunias: The white, blue, and pink varieties are the most fragrant. The fragrance is pronounced in warm, humid weather, partcularly in the evening, when they will perfume the whole immediate area; otherwise, you have to give them a good sniff up close in order to enjoy the fragrance.

4 o'clocks were a dud for me - the plants got ratty-looking, I couldn't stand them and ripped them out before the season was over.

Alyssum are quite fragrant but peter out for me; great in the spring, but once the hot weather hits they need to be replaced.

Oh! I forgot to mention Datura! Now, these don't open until dusk but those flowers will knock your socks off, gorgeous in the moonlight! Quite fragrant, too (if you're out there at night...). Very attractive, bushy plant with blue-green leaves.

I love to walk after dark in the summer, especially on a warm, humid night - a treat for the olfactory glands :0)

If you want to be gob smacked with fragrance in the evening, go with night blooming jasmine. One small piece of it will fill a pot or a ground area and put out a huge fragrance every summer evening. But the flowers aren't all that pretty.

If you want visual and olfactory impact, go for brugmansia. One in a good size pot will put out 18 inch flower bells with an almost overpowering frangrance in the evening.

if there is a fence behind.. throw in an autumn clematis ....

ken

Keep in mind also, the more blossoms, the more fragrance. Think about planting lots of a single fragrant annual, rather than "one of each." You can always try a different one next year.

I was happy with four o'clocks the year I had fifteen plants growing in buckets on the front steps. Three five-gallon buckets, five plants per bucket. That was enough plants to actually smell them at night. This year I only grew a couple and with only one plant in bloom, I was getting twigs up my nose trying to catch any scent at all. All of the four o'clocks I've grown have been fragrant, and I've tried several colors and sources. For some reason I had terrible germination with Burpee though, and I planted three different packets from them.

Oh, and I second nicotiana, but you have to get the right one if you want scent. Look for the tall white night-blooming nicotiana. It's gangly, floppy, and wilts during the day (I tell curious people it's sleeping), but at night it revives and smells fantastic. The flowers droop and point down during the day but lift themselves and point upwards at night. The plant gets three to five feet tall, so for most people the flowers are near nose level, too. Plant several in a clump, and be prepared to stake them to keep them upright, or the flowers will end up at ankle level and we're back to drunken crawling. I've tried several varieties of the short, bright colored daytime-blooming nicotiana and the original white one blows them all away for scent. I've seen it listed as Nicotiana alata, Nicotiana sanderae, and Jasmine nicotiana. Nicotiana sylvestris is reputed to be fragrant also (and taller), but I haven't tried it yet.

For me, neither of these plants was in bloom before July.
They also wait until dusk to look good, so I'd recommend adding some companion plants to add interest early in the season and during the day.

Edie

The Nicotiana noted for the fragrance is the heirloom "Only the Lonely". It is the taller one with white flowers that make your eyes roll back in ecstasy at their scent. They are getting a little less common to find these days as you see more of the colored and shorter varieties. I still have fond memories of the white one....

I ordered seed for just plain old Nicotiana sylvestris. I'm hoping this will have a strong fragrance at night. I've never seen one in bloom, much less smelled a Nicotiana before. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for some fragrance from the kind I bought. If not, I'll have to keep Only the Lonely in mind.
Kim

The Perfume series of nicotiana is more fragrant then most of the popular dwarf varieties. Yes, some petunias are more fragrant than others. I sometimes happen on a particularly pleasantly scented one now and again. The Daddys series are fragrant. As for stocks, you don't need night blooming to get fragrance. I used to grow the dwarf trisomic stocks and their aroma was intense. Yes on heliotrope. Marine is as fragrant as any other variety and I found them to be more fragrant than the fancy cutting grown new ones.