some fragrances can be very overpowering (jasmine, paperwhite narcissi, hyacinth) and will mask a lot of lighter fresher scents (primula, daphne, jonquilla). Also, conditions have to be just so for many perfumes - I find early, still evenings can be entrancing, especially for the nicotiana, honeysuckles and stocks. Generally, fragrance comes in waves and you can distinguish between the different scents. Spring fragrances always seem special to me, with a floral note that is sweetly delicious while some of the summer scents can be almost narcotically heavy. Regale Lilies have tremendous fragrance while many of the more aromatic scents such as lavender, thyme, pinks, seem to respond best to moving them, brushing past. I get really excited by fragrance - I would find it hard to justify having a rose with no scent - although some of my species are a bit dull, fragrantly speaking. A recent find is the South African Zaluzyanskya - a gorgeous little white flower with deep red reverse and an intoxicating scent. If I lived in the South of the USA, I would have gardenia and heliotrope - oooh, feeling swoony at the thought. I say, cram it all in, smell is such an important sense, you might even find yourself liking some quite niffy plants (codonopsis!, lysichiton!)

Thanks campanula for your response!

I can literally feel your excitement through your answer!

Thanks for offering other fragrant plants to intermix with roses....what fun this is going to be researching the many fragrant plants for the senses!!!

Yes, I know what you mean about the fragrance of gardenia...I have one in bloom right now near my front door. It's planted behind my Winchester Cathedral -- I do not like the myrrh scent so I'm masking the WC scent with the gardenia fragrance.

Oh! You should see how everyone who comes near WC exclaims how fragrant it is! Teehee, they don't know that it's the gardenia, not the rose :)

Audrey

Fragrant springflowers in my garden are different types of naricsus, hyacinthoides, violets and lilly of the valley. Some types of violets are very fragrant and with a bit of luck and care they look good most of summer.

Later in the seasong when the roses are blooming I have lathyrus odorata, and I really love them. I have a few leggy climbers that are ideal spots for the tall varieties. I live Norway with cool summers, so if I sow the seeds in my green house in late March, they can flower from june until september, or even october some years. I have to pick flowers and take off spent ones to prevent too much seeding. Then they last longer. I often use the short cupid varieties along boarders and where ever shorter plants work well. They even help to improve the soil.

I have a white and a pink peony that has very nice fragrant flowers in may-june. It is a very light pleasant scent that most peopel like. It goes very well with some roses, and are often finished flowering when the roses begins, perhaps with a short overlap.

When July comes my caprifolium has the ability to send out fragrance to my entire neighbourhood. I'm not kidding! It's a variety with rather small flowers, but loads of light fresh fragrance.

I also like to have a small round bed of freesia. They start to flower about three months after they are planted, so it's possible to calculate with some precultivated indoors; planted in March, then in April, and then some straight in the bed in May. It's never a spectacular flowershow, but oh what a fragrance. Unfortunately butterflies love to lay their eggs on them, so I have to watch out. If you have miniatures or small chinas they can go well together.

In summer snapdragon is a underrated flower for fragrance. Sometimes they have a fantastic fragrance that makes everybody wonder where it comes from. I don't know why this is but it's not that fragrant all the time, or even every year. However, when circumstances are right, it's worth all the effort of sowing, pricking, and I wonder why I don't plant more of them. I have both the tall and shorter varieties. If you prevent the flowers from seeding they will bloom well all summer.

It makes me happy just writing about my favourite flowers. I don't know how these plants will do where you live, but they are all easy to grow here. Lilly of the Valley can be a bit difficult some times; it either will not grow or it spreads a lot.

Previous owners of our house planted honeysuckle too close to a lilac hedge. At this time of the year I find it a less than happy combination. Both scents together make a too strong smell like a perfume with two topnotes and no base note. It is a little better in the evening when the honeysuckle takes over.

I really like Alyssiums as companion plants for narrow beds and small spaces - they do not have an overwhelming fragrance, but in mass and in the evening are very lovely mixed with the other flowers.

I like lilies of the valley as well, but you have to be cautious with them, since they are rather invasive and tend to smother all other flowers that are in their way.

Thanks, taoseeker, I will look for caprifolium to see how it'll do in my area. I love how you said it fragrance the ENTIRE neighborhood! That sounds sooooo yummy!!!

mariannese, thanks for the warning. I just purchased a honeysuckle and have not placed it in the garden yet. I'll stay clear of my Ms. Kim's lilac. :)

elemire, I love alyssiums as well...they hide the roses ugly legs very well. Only sad part is I can't seem to smell alyssiums. I wonder if I need to go at specific time of the day to enjoy their fragrance. Hmmmm, or maybe I should plant more of them to ensure fragrance to reach my nose :)

Thank you very much for all the lovely ideas everyone!

Best,

Audrey

I have never had a problem with sensory overload. I have Crepescule, Jacques Cartier and Yolande D'Aragon planted in a very small spaces (in separate mini terraces) along with a Meyer Lemon Tree. Scents are delightful, and for me, never overwhelming.

When an Angel's Trumpet is in full stride, lie underneath the blooms on a hot summer night. You will not forget the experience.

I remember a painting where someone had layed several cut roses on a desk -no water- sun coming in the windows. Try it in a closed room.

I am one of those who thinks 'French Lace' has a strong fragrance; clean, sharp, and elegant.

I just discovered Honeysuckle and Caprifolium are the same thing. My English could be better. I have a wild specis of Lonicera Caprifolium, that are sold here for it's fragrance. There are several wild varieties and cultivars that are used, and the cultivars have better flowers, but this one I planted for the fragrance. I suspect mariannese has a different kind, because my honeysuckle flowers weeks later when the lilacs are long finished blooming.

caprifolium is a species of honeysuckle - lonicera. I find that often, the most flambuoyant looking honeysuckles are the least scented - I definately cannot detect much smell in Lonicera periclymen, either early or late dutch, or american honeysuckle (brownii, tellmannia) whereas, the smallest flowered (and most rampant) japanese honeysuckle (halliana) is intense. Melissa, do you grow the etruscan honeysuckle? or another one I have never grown but have sniffed, tragophylla (chinese honeysuckle, i think?) Yum, yes, honeysuckles....and thats before I get on the winter ones!

I mistakenly planted honeysuckle my first year of gardening - it has spread to the point of killing out other plants, even monster shrubs, in the garden. Lucky for me it's in an area that I don't grow many plants in, but it DOES stop me from gardening in that area ever again until the day comes that I'm willing to drop enough Roundup in that area to kill out all of that honeysuckle which will also kill my mature shrubs I planted.
I'm running out of space unless I want to clear some trees, so I've been eyeballing that area. I'm not willing to sacrifice my mature shrubs that took SOOOO long to get big.

As to the other fragrant plants.
Roses have a different kind of fragrance. You don't really smell them till your nose gets in the bloom, unless you are growing bunches and bunches. But even with lots of roses in a small area, the fragrance of something like sweet almond verbena will totally overwhelm it. Not in a bad way, but you'll smell the sweet almond verbena and forget about the trace of rose smell in the air. I've got it in my rose garden.
As recently as a year ago I would have said that there is no such thing as too much fragrance in the garden.
BUT
Last fall when all of my sweet olives bloomed (I have tons of these- maybe 50? 60?) it was finally too much. I love the smell of apricots, but it was overwhelming.
I have so many banana shrubs that they will probably end up doing the same thing one day!
Night blooming jasmine will overwhelm anyone. I've actually moved one of these off of my porch because I felt sorry for my dogs!

Wow, cweathersby, you have given me more plants to add...sweet olives...night blooming jasmines...

Going to call around to see which nurseries in town carry those plants.

Many thanks!

Um, I'm going to throw away my honeysuckle cuz I have the chinese version, which is said to be invasive. oops, I didn't know that. Darn it! I've always wanted a honeysuckle in my garden since I was a young adult...oh, well...can't have everything.

Audrey

Audrey, there is/are honeysuckle(s) that is/are not invasive, you just research them very carefully. Actually there is, for example, a bush version that does not smell that much but has beautiful bluish green leaves and pale pink berries that birds love - excellent background plant. I am sorry that I don't have the exact name but I lost the tag many, many years ago; I can only tell you that it is not a vine honeysuckle but a bush cultivar. Many visitors to my yard admired it.

My favorite fragrant plants include
-Sweetpeas,especially the English Spencer type. I plant these in Februrary for April-May bloom. I remember a May Day practice of leaving a cone of flowers hanging on a ribbon on a neighbors front door knob on May Day, sweetpeas in mixed colors of purple, violet, white, yellow and pink and magenta.
-Poets jasmine, though it does spread rapidly, and if you don't wish it to I suggest planting it in a large pot with a saucer beneath it.
- English native primrose.
-Narcissi. I especially want to put in a border of "Daphne" an antique Narcissus.
-Daphne odorata, it flowers here in winter when few other flowers do. It has a tempermental root system, when young, so I reccomend buying the largest plant possible and be sure its roots are healthy.
-Meyer Lemon. The fruit is especially delicious and the flowers are scented. Though I wouldn't grow it just for its flowers, they are a delightful bonus, and I can smell them from a dozen feet away when I'm working in the garden.
-Myrtle. The leaves give off one of my favorite fragrances, when brushed against, and there is a nice dwarf form of Myrtle communis, that only grows to be c. 3 feet tall, perfect for planting along a pathway.
as well as,
-Lavender blue dilly dilly...Rosemary green...
Luxrosa

Now, Meyer lemon truly has a powerful fragrance; it really overpowers the neighboring roses. And the fruits are delicious.

Sweet peas - how I love them and how difficult to grow them in my climate! I forgot to plant them last fall but I should remember throw seeds in this fall.

Korean Spice Viburnum perfumes my yard long before the roses bloom and then along comes Mock Orange with its delightful fragrance----I agree about the Myrrh scent--it is not pleasing to my nose but I do love the looks of my Constance Spry---

So many lovey fragrant roses in my yard right now---but I can't tell which one is which--I just love them all as they have their turn perfuming the yard

Florence

Thank you ladies! I just purchased a Meyer Lemon shrub a few months ago -- LOVE the fragrance --

I just hope it survives.

It depends... When the forecast is freeze we do cover up both the lemon and the tangerine depending on the expected drop. Sometimes just with a very good quality row cover, sometime they get blankets and sometimes they get duvets and some water resistant stuff top of that if we are told to have rain or snow. It does not take much time to wrap all these around and cover the plants but as I told you I am stubborn, obsessed, and I love to stretch the zones both southward and northward. We often have Halloween during the winter when these two plants look like ghosts. It's fun.