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favourite fragrant flowers?

 
Posts: 56
Location: Tampa area, Florida - zone 9a
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Scott Stiller wrote:I don’t recall ever smelling Almond Verbena. I’m not even sure I’ve heard of it until today.



Scott, it's a plant from old that fell out of favor at the nurseries and homes (as plants often do).  They are making a strong come back in my neck of the woods.  They smell wonderful and the bees LOOOVE them.  I believe there may be a couple of varieties (please don't take that for gospel) as  mine will grow from 1 foot stumps to 8 - 10 foot full-on plants in about 2 - 3 months aaaand about 15 - 20 feet tall and as wide as they like by the end of summer.....but I've seen folks plant them in smaller places, so I don't know if they don't know what glorious monsters they are or if they have a smaller variety.

If they grow in your area and you have the space, I highly recommend them.

The photo I've attached isn't the best (hopefully it's attached), but will give you an idea.  I chopped these guys up in late February/early March.  They are about 9 feet tall.
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gardener
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Location: North Carolina zone 7
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That’s crazy Dawna! How has this beauty avoided me all these years? Most things grow in zone 7b so I’m looking into it tomorrow. I’ve even got a spot in mind. You’re the best!
 
pollinator
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Location: BC Interior, Zone 6-7
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My favourites that grow here are mock orange and black locust. When they're in full bloom, we can often smell the patch of black locust half a kilometre away from our house.

I dug up a bunch of lilac suckers to transplant at our place, and when those start flowering they'll be on the list, too.
 
Dawna Janda
Posts: 56
Location: Tampa area, Florida - zone 9a
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Jan White wrote:My favourites that grow here are mock orange and black locust. When they're in full bloom, we can often smell the patch of black locust half a kilometre away from our house.

I dug up a bunch of lilac suckers to transplant at our place, and when those start flowering they'll be on the list, too.



I wish we could grow lilacs.....sighhh
 
Dawna Janda
Posts: 56
Location: Tampa area, Florida - zone 9a
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Scott Stiller wrote:That’s crazy Dawna! How has this beauty avoided me all these years? Most things grow in zone 7b so I’m looking into it tomorrow. I’ve even got a spot in mind. You’re the best!



It is crazy.  It's fabulous  to go out every day to see how much they've grown.  Happy to be of service my friend!   Have fun!
 
gardener
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Royal Pawlonia, I love the smell and how far it carries. The first time I saw a Tea Tree Olive for sale, it had one miniscule flower on it, and it completely won me over. My  Confederate Jasmine just bloomed and it is amazing. Walking through mint always shocks me, even when I know it and expect it, it still surprises me when the scent reaches my nose. And last, there is a creek that feeds a lake where I sometimes go fishing at night. When the honeysuckles are in bloom, the fragrance seems to flow down into the creek and accumulates there. It's absolutely heavenly. Many plants have a good smell if you stop and really check, but these are the ones that stop me in my tracks. They are the ones that surprise me every time I smell them. I guess you could say the fragrance is too big to be contained by memory.
 
pioneer
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Location: WV- up in the hills
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Favorite Fragrant Flowers for me have 2 categories: those that I have grown over the years, and those that I haven't but still will stop to smell if I come across them. These are in no particular order, just listing as I think of them.

Everyone knows that roses smell wonderful, but do you know that some have almost NO scent? I've found that most flower shop roses have almost no scent. It's the heirloom/old roses that smell the best, and it's a good thing I like purple and all shades thereof, cuz I've found that the purple/lavender shades smell the best. (Did you ever think that a color could have a specific smell!) I've had red, orange, pink and purple/lavender roses. My old lavender rose had double flowers, which means, for those who haven't advanced this far into nomenclature, means that the petals are twice as many, so it looks much fuller. It was heaven smelling those roses. You must try them, even just at the nursery if you have no inclination or space for growing your own.
As an aside, I have propagated roses from cuttings. I did a yellow variety, taking cuttings from a work location. They all seemed to mutate the flowers so that it looked like the flower was going to sprout more flowers from it's center. I didn't like it and killed them all or passed them on to my eldest daughter. Link to what they looked like https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-parade-rose-dwarf-type-with-flowers-showing-genetic-mutation-known-73160128.html

I moved into a place when I was much younger that had a lilac bush in the back, and it was the pale lavender color, and they smelled wonderful. I would collect the stems full of just flowering blossoms and hang them in the garage to dry to make potpourri with. I went through a major potpourri phase, collecting all sorts of goodies to put into my mixes, by the barrel full if I could get that much on my foraging expeditions!

Plumeria is one I've never grown, or at least not long enough to get flowers. They all fail in my care. But Lordy how I love their scent. I look for it when hunting for a girly body spray, when I even do that.

Citrus blossoms ALWAYS smell fantastic. I have a small lemon tree and a tangerine that I cozy up to when they are in flower. If I didn't value the fruit as much I might add those to potpourris. I have, when I had access to larger trees that were completely covered! My nose is sniffing as we speak, looking for these aromas as I write about them!!

My grandmother introduced me to Night Blooming Jasmine, the shrub, not vine. I was only about 5 or 6 when she would take me out with her to pluck just a stem or 3 to bring inside. To this day, nearly every house I've lived in I've planted one of these bushes in memory and honor of her and my time with her. Right now I have one that I purchased when we moved into this place planted outside our bedroom window. It was tiny when I got it and now, 8 years later, it's a monster that requires trimming back each year after the frosts we get kill it down a few feet. It always comes back with vigor. I'm currently in between zones 9a and 9b. The lines on the zone map are literally only about a block away.
Then there is the 2nd one I have grown from a cutting I took about 4 years ago, now planted at the front of the house (both are on the south-facing side of the house), it has become equally a monster, already as tall as the roof and as wide as a full window. Both are helping to block some of the hot summer sun in Inland Southern California. And both smell just heavenly when in bloom.

Grandma also introduced me to hyacinth. And stock. I prefer the smell of the stock. It's a wonderfully spicy in a sweet way sort of scent. I've grown both, but not currently.

There are also the Pink Ladies (as I know them), or Naked Ladies of Amaryllis Belladonna that smell gorgeous. These are a bulb flower and unusual in that they send up their leaves long before the flowers. The leaves actually die down before the flower stalk appears. I'm guessing that is the nature of the NAKED part of the common name. These for me are a Momma thing, and I have collected bulbs from abandoned locations where there used to be a home. I have them currently growing in 2 locations on this small property (think tiny yard in a mobile home park). One is always shady and they do just fine there; the other is sunny for more than half the day in a hot, almost desert, climate.

Sweet Alyssum can be smelled from yards away, and it reseeds itself so easily that it seems perennial. Of course, loving all things purple, I choose those over the white almost every time I plant any. I don't currently have any in the yard.

Honeysuckle can be very invasive, and will easily take over the fence you plant it by, and the trees near that fence, and will climb right over any sheds or outbuildings you plant it by. But oh how I love the smell of the blossoms. My one honeysuckle was brought to me by Mom, who had paid 50 cents for the 3 cuttings in a small pot that looked so sad she had to bring it to me to save. And save it I did. I planted it in an out-of-the-way corner, in semi-shade, beside a chain link fence. It's survival seemed rather iffy the whole first year. Besides giving it water and keeping other weeds away, I just left it to it's own devices. After 2 years there was no question about it's survival as it had begun it's conquest of the immediate area. Mom was happy and almost didn't recognize it for the sickly looking thing she had brought me.
The paper wasps we have loved making their nest in the deep shade of it's thickest parts, so I had to be careful around it. It seemed I had more paper wasps doing the pollination in my yard than bees, so I let them do the job, mostly unmolested! We left each other alone, but only the nests that were not close to the house. Any attached to the underside of the eaves were eradicated and nests removed.

Butterfly bush is also a wonderful scent, and the things can also become quite the monsters of the yard. I had 2 at that honeysuckle house. One was an apology offering from Mom, within a week or 2 of getting one for myself. Both went into the area that became the chicken yard, and they used the shade below in the sandy soil as their dust bath. Again, lavender and purple were the colors. I cut them back each year to keep the flowers coming and the overall size manageable.

I spent a few years in the desert of Yucca Valley/Joshua Tree California and while the scent isn't from a flower, the scent of the greasewoods in the presence of moisture (the infrequent rains) is a sweet smell that you will never forget. I live in the Hemet/San Jacinto Valley in Riverside County, and the closest greasewoods (larrea tridentata) are out on the I-10 freeway heading to Palm Springs. My reason for giving my location is to say that I can smell them in this valley when the conditions are right; and I breathe in the scent deeply! When I drive out that way I try to stop and collect a few branches to bring home. It's a clean smell, and not like a bleach clean. I once read about a location that was proven to have only 1 plant covering many hundreds of square feet, though the surface looked like many hundreds of individual plants. Apparently larrea tridentata can and does propagate not only by seed, but by sending out underground shoots. Amazing!

There are many kinds of lavender to grow. I prefer the English and French varieties, far above the Spanish. It's the esthetic of the flower form for me. I've planted 2 or 3 at nearly every house since becoming an adult. I currently have none, as the wicked gophers came and ate the roots of the last ones and I've planted a black locust tree and the 2nd night blooming jasmine where they used to be, up next to the house. For the shade. In an area that sees many days of 100 degrees F or better during the long summer.

This encourages me to also speak about the scented leaves I tend to plant, also towards that scented yard. Rose-scented geranium, here and there, to brush against as you pass. The mints for tea.

I actually tend to plant for a highly scented yard. I love being able to sit outside in the late afternoons and early evenings and smell all the wonderful flowers. It makes a bad day better. It makes a good day a great one. What would we do without the pleasures of our sense of smell in a sweetly fragrant yard?

I'm sure I've forgotten several that I love, have or have not grown. I'm currently smelling the coffee that is beckoning to me! And the bacon!! Yum. Until next we meet!
Thanks for the fruit! You know who you are

 
pollinator
Posts: 939
Location: Federal Way, WA - Western Washington (Zone 8 - temperate maritime)
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Apparently almond verbena is aloysia virgata - grows great in Central Texas!  Here's some info for us farther north:  "Listed as hardy to USDA Zone 8, in most warm climates, almond verbena will be deciduous, especially in mild winters. But even if it doesn’t die back to the ground, it will perform best if you treat it as you would other root-hardy perennial shrubs, shearing it back to the ground in late winter. This hard pruning forces almond verbena to put on all new growth, making it fuller, greener, and bushier. A little light pruning in mid-summer can reinvigorate the plant for fall growth."
 
gardener
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Ditto Lavender and gardenia, also Arabian jasmine.

Champaca smells so fragrant too. I tried to grow one from seeds but no germination so far.
 
pollinator
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Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada -- Zone 5a
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Apple blossoms.
Mock orange (philadelphus).
Lilacs.
Old-fashioned roses that smell less purfumy and more edible.
Swamp milkweed.
Some lilies (the ones that smell spicy and almost edible).
Sweetpeas.

I'm sure I'm missing a ton, but these come to mind. I definitely choose to plant some things just for their scent. Ooh, on the leafy front, I adore pineapple sage. Also pineapple weed. And the smell of fresh basil makes me go into a swoon.
 
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I like smelling Arabian Jasmine every time, I smell one it feels like I'm in a church talking to God.
 
pollinator
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Tulsi
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Scott Stiller
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Bridal veil spirea.
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pollinator
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My #1 favorite smell in the world is basswood flowers (or you might say linden flowers, but trees in the genus Tilia). I also love wild roses and mint-family plants that bloom near me like wild bergamot, mountain mint, anise hyssop. Walking under a basswood tree in bloom though. Heaven.
 
pollinator
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Several years ago someone recommended something called a Korean Spice Bush. I bought it and planted it and it bloomed fragrantly for years until I sold the house. I am sure that it has another name or two but I don't know what it was called elsewhere.
 
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Peony and Sweet Alyssum.
 
pollinator
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my favourite fragrant is a very subtle one. When liguster hedges aren't trimmed, they become bushes with fine white flowers. I love the special scent of those flowers. Probably because they remind me of my childhood. We had a very large hedge and my father didn't always have time to cut it ...
 
Inge Leonora-den Ouden
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Marisa Lee wrote:My #1 favorite smell in the world is basswood flowers (or you might say linden flowers, but trees in the genus Tilia). I also love wild roses and mint-family plants that bloom near me like wild bergamot, mountain mint, anise hyssop. Walking under a basswood tree in bloom though. Heaven.


O yes, Linden trees blooming! Not only we (humans) love the smell, also the honey bees ... It's like the tree is buzzing!
 
pollinator
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Nicotiana is one of my favorite fragrant flowers, it's strongest at night as well, perfect for a moon garden. Right now the buck brush (ceonotheus cuenetus) is blooming, it is also intoxicating.
 
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I really miss fragrant roses! They used to smell so great, now they look great but have no smell.
We also had four o' clocks when I was growing up. Late afternoons smelled wonderful. They were huge bushes of them just a few feet outside our door. I could sit out there for hours smelling them. They were gorgeous too.
 
pollinator
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We had some wild roses near my house when I was a kid. And I love to go smell them. Along with some peonies and lilacs were always some of my favorites. I had never been around citrus trees until I was an adult and loved how the orange blossoms scented the whole area up with their fragrance.
 
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Scott Stiller wrote:I don’t recall ever smelling Almond Verbena. I’m not even sure I’ve heard of it until today.




You should try clematis, their fragrance is magical, its one of my most favorite fragrant flowers.
 
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