African blue basil! If you plant it where you brush up against it when walking around the garden you will be constantly surrounded by it's wonderful spicy scent.

I'm also very found of the scents of four o'clocks, white butterfly ginger, and honeysuckle.

Please share more on what type of honeysuckle, the stuff I find here has no smell so I suspect I may be looking at the wrong kind.

I also second getting the sweet almond, it does smell good, I also really like my Michelia Figo (Banana shrub)

Night blooming Jasmine smells pretty good too as does Osmanthus.

My absolute favorite is michelia alba!

You can't go wrong with the sweet almond. One of my most favorite is
Telosma cordata "Chinese Violet" - a very well behaved vine that blooms all summer. Hopefully, mine will come back after the freeze, but if not I'll have to get it again.

Ginny

Here is a link that might be useful: Telsoma Cordata

wallisadi, that is a beautiful angel trumpet! Do you know the name?

nope.........we have four or five colors, but this is the smelly one. starts out yellow and then turns a deep gold. froze to the ground now,but we shoot pictures of everything and anything that blooms here...:)

Go native - Fiddlewood - Citharexylum fruticosum
This is a large, multi-trunked shrub, occasionally grown as a single-leader tree, that blooms most of the year and has a great fragrance. You can turn it into a shrub or foundation planting or use it as focal point.

In this picture, it's the large green mass on the left. By the way, this one is on the north side of our garden and was beat really hard by the cold. No leaf drop!

Thank you! I'm keeping a list. I'm not seeing these plants at the big box stores! Looks like I'll need to go to a specialty nursery/online source to find most of your favorites.

I do have some angel's trumpets that I started from cuttings I brought from PA in November. I planted them out in early December and they were frozen to the ground during the freezing weather but are leafing out, a testimony to how hardy these plants are.

I'm interested in the fiddlewood, fawnridge. I read that it provides both nectar and fruits for wildlife.

If you have suggestions about where to find some of these sweeties, please let me know. I live in North Port, between Venice and Port Charlotte in Sarasota County.
Marcia PA/FL

Marcia,

There is a nursery in Myakka (east of Sarasota) called Florida Native Plants. It has most of the natives and some Florida-friendly plants. Fiddlewood is on their list, but I would call before going since you are a little ways. By the way, very close to this nursery is Crowley's nursery which is a must to see. I would wait till springtime, but I know you won't leave empty handed. Both are very nice and FNP is very knowledgeable about all native plants. Both have nice plantings around the nurseries to observe some of their stock in the landscape.

Anna

Here is a link that might be useful: florida native plants nursery

Nice composition of plants fawnridge...

I enjoy night blooming jasmine, gardenia and bay rum. I don't mind rubbing up against a rosemary either...

Oh, Marcia, I forgot to add my votes. For March I vote for orange blossoms, for April I vote for gardenias, for May I vote for confederate jasmine (a common, rather rampant vine around here with a heavenly smell), for summer I vote for michaelia alba.

Anna

I picked my fiddlewood up at Accent Trees and Nursery in Palmetto this fall.

Crowley's had the sweet almond a couple of years ago - haven't been there in a while to know what she has now.

Terri

Here is a link that might be useful: Accent

Lemon tree blossoms!

Lakeview Jasmine is blooming now and it has a wonderful scent!

Regina

I put some alyssum in a hanging basket with some white caladiums several weeks ago, not remembering that it is fragrantly sweet.
I guess in the garden it is so close to the ground I never noticed how pretty it smells.

So now it is hanging up at nose-level, perfuming the area under a Gumbo Limbo while I wait for the Stephanotis to bloom.
I think petunias in a basket will smell pretty, too. Just for something quick while your trees and vines get their blooms to delight your nose!

Susie

Thanks so much for the plant ideas and sources! Now to do some research and start a list that I can carry around with me. You never know when you might come across a garden treasure.

Fawnridge, what kind of bromeliads are under your fiddlewood? Do you know where I can buy them--all I see at Lowe's are the more colorful ones. Could I grow them under a small oak tree?

I'm sure I'll be back with more questions.
Marcia PA/FL

I can't believe no one has mentioned my personal favorite: Tea Olive (Osmanthus fragrans). IMO nothing I've ever grown, including roses, beats the scent of this one.
However it isn't a beautiful plant. Currently I have mine at the back of the planting around the pool. That way it can be smelled but is mostly hidden by other plants.

Marcia,

The best places to buy broms are on the SW coast of FL-
Michael's, Venice, FL and Tropiflora, Sarasota, FL. Tropiflora usually has a booth at most of the garden plant sales, ie Leu Gardens.

sweet marjorum,I always rub it on garden visitors wrists and they agree it smells heavenly!

Marcia,

I have been trying to PEM you through Garden Web and am having no success. Please try to email me through them and if that doesn't work out, let me know here and I will try another idea.

Veronica

Marcia - those are Neoregelia "Fireball".

I love fragrant plants.
For "tree/standard"
Brugsmansia "Charles Girmaldi" is my most fragrant angel trumpet.
Kind of looks like the one pictured.
Stemmadenis tree - blooms/fragrant from April til Nov.
aloysia - almond verbena- blooms/fragrant year around.
Night blooming jasmine

For vines
jasminum officinale - non-stop blooms
rangoon creeper - double flower

Annuals
Heliotrope
purple petunias
alysums

I have bought so many plants that say they are fragrant
and they are not!
We ought to start a post on what plants
don't live up to their fragrance.
My dwarf ylang ylang- 1 day of fragrance
and your nose has to be right up there to smell it.
I'll still keep it because of the beautiful blooms.
.......cheryl

Thank you for more great suggestions! It's nice to have first-hand experiences from local gardeners and not have to rely on descriptions on websites and in books. Thanks for the ID on the broms, Fawnridge. And thank you for letting me know about the brom nursery in Venice, Bodiggly--that isn't too far from me.

Veronica, I've sent you an email.

I'm just itching to start gardening--when will the cold and rain depart and spring arrive???
Marcia PA/FL

My favorite at the moment is lonicera frangratisima (honeysuckle bush.) It must be one of the most fragrant plants on the planet and it blooms in the dead of winter (at least in north Florida.) Pretty too-every branch is covered in small honeysuckle blooms. I've got a light that backlights it and the blooms really glow at night.

I love the fragrance of Rosemary and Sweet Basil too. I found a website that sells the Brugmansia (Angel Trumpet) plants but I only use it to ID the different varieties. I love all the different colors of them, I didn't know they were fragrant. Some of them are on my "to find" list. Great pictures!
Sharon

I would have to say my Southern Magnolia's beats them all in my landscape for fragrant

I love the honeysuckle I have in PA, so I'll have to look for a variety here, too. And I'll have to get some herbs--I love to crush and sniff their leaves even if I don't cook with them. Susie, I love the magnolia trees, but they get BIG and I have a small lot :-(
Marcia PA/FL

I would say that my personal favorite fragrant plant is the sweet tea olive. I love the apricot-scented blooms that seem to disappear and re-appear when you're around it.

Wally world was where I first saw, or rather smelled them, and having fifty or so three gallon buckets of sweet tea olives in full bloom is just something to behold.

I also like the smell of honeysuckle in bloom, as well as citrus in bloom. Four or five 15+ year old citrus trees in full bloom will just carry a fragrance throughout the whole yard. Even the wretched trifoliate orange smells great in bloom.

Finally photographed lonicera frangratisima (honeysuckle bush.)