Best & worst smelling flowers near your bedroom window and what smells you should never combine.

O.K. I'm about done planting out all my vegies and I'm back to planting flowers, vines, shrubs and small trees. I'm going to plant some stuff close to the house this year. Some in screaming hot sun, some to give shade, some in the shade, some just for the WOW factor too. And anything edible is also awesome.  Gotta see what I can find at my local nursery. I have a coupon!! So, what would be great near your bedroom window and what would give you nightmares? Zone 8b.

Two issues....1. I rent out rooms in my house and this will effect all my housemates, present and future.
                      2. I don't have any sense of smell so I am counting on you all to give me great advise.
You always do!

No hawthorn near the window!

Lilac & lavender are splendid   ...a firm 'no' to valerian.

Lilac or sweet shrub near the bedroom windows.  No to geraniums (pelargoniums) near the windows as although the flowers are beautiful, the foliage just plain stinks.  Same for chestnut trees as those blooms smell horrendous.

Stop and smell the roses.  Do any varieties work in your area?

Another sweet smell is gardenia though, those might not work where you live either.

I like sweet alyssum and it worked well for me when watered.  After dear hubby cut it down because it grew too tall I noticed that it worked well as a mulch.

Alder said, "My list of all time favorites: Night-bloomers first....the most romantic of all....night jessamine (Cestrum nocturnum), night-scented stock (Matthiola bicornis), night-blooming tobacco (Nicotiana alata and N. sylvestris), and moonflower (Calonictyon or Ipomoea noctiflora?).

https://permies.com/t/40857/favourite-fragrant-flowers

Hi Everyone.
Because I don't have a sense of smell I hardly ever think about it. For me it's always about... can I get it to grow, propagate it to make many more, color, size, shape, drought tolerance and where can I put it. It's just now when I'm starting to plant more near the house that I think I need to concentrate on what they smell like. I know that lots of people are very sensitive to smells. I want my tenants to be happy, not miserable. And I know that I probably shouldn't plant things too near each other that have very incompatible  smells.

I have some lilacs around the yard but they only bloom for a couple of weeks in the spring. They only have scent when they're blooming, right? I haven't had much luck yet with lavenders but I keep trying. From my time working at the garden center I know people have a really hard time trying to grow night blooming jessamines  and gardenias here so I haven't tried.

Anne, I have lots of roses in the yard. They are easy to propagate from cuttings and they are surprisingly more drought tolerant then a lot of other plants. A couple of different ones were free from Craigslist. And 2 that that I bought are my favorites, Don Juan  and Joseph's Coat. They are both climbing roses that I've propagated a lot of. They are gorgeous! They grow in sun or shade. But I don't know if any of them have much scent.  I know some roses have a lot of scent and some none at all. I'll have to bring someone into the garden and ask them.

And I have a Vitex Agnus too. I got a baby 'Shoal's Creek' last fall and it has been hanging out in my greenhouse this winter. Really growing fast and pretty but no blooms yet. I will be planting it out very soon. And I see plenty of snakes around but thank God I haven't seen a rattlesnake yet! What do you do about that? I always see and kill a few 'black widows' in the yard each year but I've noticed so many more this last month! Dang!

You need more yellow jackets to deal with the black widows... probably other wasps prey on them too.  I have seen two black widows in the past seven years. One of them was nearly two inches in the body alone but considering how many other species I see on a regular basis I think they're preferred by the wasps. I guaranteed if start turning over the rocks in my garden border I will find a couple good sized tarantulas and probably some toads within a few minutes. We get tarantula hawks around here regularly but the yellow jackets are building nests everywhere.

Vitex, rattlesnakes, and black widows, I have all three.

My vitex babies are ready to plant as I leave them out in the hottest part of the day now.  I am just not looking forward to digging two holes in the rock.  I bring the plants in at night because I don't want deer tasting them and knocking the plants off the shelf onto the ground.

I have always heard to get a dog to keep snakes away.  My neighbors came by the other day and said cats keep them away too.

My black widow spider are really shy and don't bother anyone, at least not so far.

Wow, I hadn't expected this but our conversation has taught me a lot already... about black widow spiders!! Thank you ladies! I have a yard chock full of honey bees all summer but I  have never seen any yellow jackets here. I have been getting quite a few more very pretty wasps in the last couple of years but I don't know what they're up to yet. And Anne, these spiders aren't so shy at all. I have found plenty of them in my garage and I water my garden as the sun is coming up. Lots of them are still out and about then. And there are so many now that I can tell which webs are theirs. Very different from other regular spider webs.

But you both got me to thinking and I just found this.  https://www.lawnstarter.com/blog/pest-control/how-get-rid-black-widow-spiders/   I am going to try ALL of their suggestions. 94* today. Summer has arrived.

Datura!!!
I  lived in an old house with a massive Datura.. one of the rooms had blooms coming up to the second story. Every single person who had that room went crazy having started out as pleasant quite normal.. truly went mad.. hallucinations violent outbursts etc. A friend from Shri Lanka said after meeting the current tenant of the room, saw the Datura out his window .. told me immediately "you have to cut that thing down don't you know they are toxic?" "I think he's already sick"
Honestly it all clicked in that moment.. the landlord was really crazy too.. It came down that week. An antidote, but it convinced me for life.