Plant garden to provide welcoming scents for all seasons
Gardening is a sensual experience. You have the feel of dirt between your fingers, the tactile experience of kneeling to plant or weed, the sights of your garden treasures, the sounds of birds and squirrels, and even the ambient sounds of the neighborhood.
But there is one sense that has a special place for avid gardeners: scent. Mention aromatic plants and a weekend gardener thinks of kitchen herbs or the salvia family. However, there is a category of scented plants distinguished by one simple description: sweet. As in heady, perfumed, heavenly.
There are genera of familiar fragrant plants: rose, gardenia, honeysuckle, jasmine and wisteria. But there are also lesser-known plants that offer a bouquet of fragrances. (I have left for another day discussion of fruit trees and bulbs, whose perfumed scents deserve their own list.) Here are a few favorites.
Spring
In early spring, gardeners are treated to two siren scents. Edgeworthia, or paper bush, issues spherical heads of tiny, tubular, bright yellow flowers even before the attractive leaves appear. Their aroma can only be described as intoxicating. Boronia megastigma, a small evergreen shrub native to the sandy heaths of Australia, produce soft, needlelike leaves from which emerge a series of tiny, solitary bell-shaped flowers. Depending on the variety, these flowers range from a greenish yellow to a reddish brown. Despite their modest dimensions, collectively they produce a heavenly aroma noticeable from a distance.
For a more subtle bouquet, consider adding one or more species of Viburnum to your garden, especially burkwoodii, carlcephalum, Chesapeake and odoratissimum (sweet viburnum). Not only do attractive white florets open from pink buds, but several of these species follow this show with delightful red ovoid fruit.
As spring gives way to summer, another shrub offers its distinctive aroma. Deutzia, a hardy deciduous shrub hailing from East Asia, offers many intriguing species, some of which, like D. gracilis and D. scabra, offer a honey scent. When they’re happy, deutzias bloom profusely, nearly obscuring their pretty leaves with white or pink blossoms.
Summer
Say ‘Mock Orange’ and the experienced gardener knows you’re referring to one of many species of philadelphus. Flowering in early summer, most varieties offer a fruity bouquet. But did you know there’s a mock orange bush that’s native to Japan: pittosporum tobira. It produces masses of small, creamy white flowers that perfume the air late spring into summer. If you have the space, why bother choosing? Add several of these hardy bushes to your garden.
Another aromatic shrub is cleyera japonica. In mid-summer, it produces masses of bowl-shaped creamy white flowers tucked under a canopy of glossy green leaves. Their unique aroma is both sweet and musty.
The charming leycesteria formosa, otherwise known as Himalayan honeysuckle, is worth mentioning. A native of the mountains of many Eastern countries, this deciduous shrub produces a thicket of brilliant green ovate leaves from which emerge dangling racemes of whorled, tubular five-lobed flowers. With their descending burgundy bracts, it is easy to imagine them as the layered roofs of miniature pagodas.
It isn’t only shrubs that arouse the olfactory senses in summer. One of my favorite scents comes courtesy of Mirabilis jalapa, or, as it’s commonly known, four o’clocks. (The name refers to the proclivity of its tubular flowers to open in late afternoon.) Mirabilis looks unprepossessing until you come across them in the early evening. Then your nose is held captive by the sweetest scent — it’s olfactory candy. My only complaint is that this wonderful plant is an annual, forcing the gardener to begin anew each year.
Another tubular flower high on the hummingbird’s wish list is the evocative Sinningia tubiflora. Not to be confused with S. speciosa (gloxinia), this perennial sends up 2-foot flower stalks from a mound of soft gray-green leaves. In early summer, long white flowers sprout, offering a sublime lemony scent.
Where mirabilis is common, Zaluzianskya capensis, known as midnight candy, offers the evening stroller a heady perfume. Plus, the brilliant white flowers are adorable, each with five deeply cleft lobes and crimson backs. By contrast, two Oenothera species, pallida and speciosa, offer a more subtle scent. They’re called evening primrose for the habit of opening in the early evening, and this is the best time to catch their delicate bouquet. Though the flowers typically last only a day, oenotheras are prolific, flowering continuously from early summer through fall.
One tree bears mentioning: the irresistible Laburnum watereri. It gets its common name, golden chain tree, from densely flowering racemes of brilliant yellow flowers that hang like golden waterfalls. As if this summer show, offset by green foliage, weren’t enough, the flowers issue a subtle, spicy scent, especially in the evening. I first saw this tree formed into a double-sided, 30-foot espalier at Sonoma Horticultural nursery. Ablaze in sun-kissed wisteria-like golden flowers, it was breathtaking.
One can close out summer with a fan favorite, Buddleja, one of several plants nicknamed Butterfly bush. Flowers from its most popular variety, B. davidii, are instantly recognizable: foot-long curving cones of densely packed white, pink or purple flowers. But check out B. globosa with its 1-inch yellow spheres or B. weyeriana with its rounded clusters of golden flowers. Each issues a heady perfume and is a magnet for butterflies and bees as well.
Autumn
For an early-autumn treat, consider adding Clerodendron bungei to your garden. A deciduous shrub native to China but available at nurseries in the Bay Area, it produces rounded panicles of intensely fragrant five-lobed pink flowers starting in late summer, offset beautifully against the lush growth of ovate, toothed green leaves.
Mention Polianthes tuberose to the weekend gardener and he or she might return a puzzled look. But put a flowering specimen under his or her nose and you’ll hear, “Oh, that plant!” Very few plants can muster the intoxicating, almost overwhelming perfume of P. tuberose. Day or night, come early fall, it wafts its highly distinctive scent.
Choisya, also known as Mexican orange blossom, is a double threat, often blooming in both spring and autumn. The two most popular species are Aztec pearl and ternate, with the latter boasting a variety, ‘Sundance,’ showcasing bright yellow foliage. As the name suggests, both species’ white flowers offer a delicious fruit-tinged aroma.
Winter
Out of a host of scented winter-blooming shrubs, daphnes are so highly regarded that societies have sprung up around the world to both study and collect them. The diversity of this fragrant shrub is impressive, but all the casual gardener needs to know is that most species offer a truly memorable sensory experience.
Another shrub that is familiar on the West Coastis mahonia. Known commonly as holly, there are several species native to Asia that, unlike their local cousins, offer a sweet fragrance during the early winter blooming season. M. japonica and m. lomariifolia produce sprays of perfumed yellow flowers, followed by attractive bluish-purple berries.
Every avid gardener has a real — or imagined — perfumed garden. And all of us remember that one summer evening when we were captivated by a heavenly scent. www.sfgate.com
