There are many wonderful flowers that you can grow to add fragrance to your garden. Plant a few of these aromatic gems around your yard and you’ll give your eyes and nose a real treat!

Shrubs

• Daphne Light pink buds in gold ball sized clusters open to white flowers with an intoxicatingly sweet fragrance that fills the spring air. This relatively small bush grows about three to four feet tall and wide, with all green or variegated leaves. Somerset and Carol Mackie are the most popular. This shrub grows in full sun to part sun.
• Lilac Both purple, pink and white Lilac will offer its classic scent every spring in your garden. The star-shaped blossoms appear in large dramatic clusters in early spring. This shrub will reach between six and eight feet tall. It likes full sun or light shade.
• Fragrant Viburnum Several varieties of Viburnum can add fragrance, as well as great structure to the garden. Different varieties produce golf ball to baseball sized cluster blooms. Their pink buds open to pure white, very fragrant flowers. Burkwood, Korean Spice, Spice Girl, and Spice Ball, as well as Mohawk and Judd’s Viburnum are among the most fragrant. These Viburnums grow six to ten feet tall and wide making them great for borders. Grow in full sun to part sun.
• The Rose has earned its place as one of America’s favorite flowers. It’s no wonder why: The blooms are beautiful, perfect for cutting and many are wonderfully fragrant. The flowers come in a wide range of colors, from dark reddish black to pure white.
• Mock Orange The smell of citrus blooms can be enjoyed here in Michigan in the form of the hard shrub known as Mock Orange. White blooms scent the air sweetly in the spring. This shrub is very tough and can grow in a variety of conditions, from full sun to part shade.

Other Shrubs: Butterfly Bush, Summersweet Clethra.

Perennials

• Garden Phlox is one of summer’s show-stopping flowers. It bears big clusters of candy-colored blooms on four foot tall stems from mid to late summer. These blooms bear a sweet fragrance that’s most apparent on warm, sunny days.
• Lily of the Valley If you have a shadier spot to fill, Lily of the Valley offers big fragrance. Blooming in spring and early summer, it provide a low-maintenance ground cover with a sweet perfume. Just give these hardy beauties plenty of moisture and some shade and they will thrive.
• Oriental Lilies Powerfully fragrant and stunningly gorgeous, Oriental Lilies such as the famous ‘Star Gazer’ can perfume an entire garden. Oriental Lilies bloom in mid to late-summer in shades of white, pink and yellow. They’re wonderful cut flowers, too!

Other Perennials: Daffodils, Peony, Dianthus, Daylily, Hyacinth, Sweet Autumn Clematis, Iris, Bee Balm, and Astilbe.

Annuals

• Petunias There are a lot of varieties of this favorite annual that offer an intense sweet scent. In the evenings, a flower box full of Petunias can perfume the air.
• Sweet Alyssum Known for its carpet of lightly fragrant flowers of white, rose, lavender or purple, Sweet Alyssum is an easy to grow, low-maintenance cool-season annual. Growing not much more than six inches tall, this plant is a good addition to edgings, beds, rock gardens, hanging baskets, and window boxes.
• Nemesia Beautiful and intricate flowers, Nemesia will add sweet fragrance, with a hint of vanilla, to your garden. The blooms have two petals that form eye-catching flowers.

Other Annuals: Marigolds, Moonflower Vine, Stock, Four O’Clocks, Flowering Tobacco, Summer Snapdragon, Sweet Pears, Angel’s Trumpets.

Herbs

• Lavender Both the flowers and the foliage of Lavender plant produce the classic scent that many of us know. Plant Lavender along your garden paths to enjoy the aroma as you stroll, or place it near your favorite seat in the sun. Lavender is tolerant of heat, wind and drought, but it likes well-drained soil and full sun.
• Pineapple Sage All sages are wonderfully fragrant, but Pineapple Sage is an extremely sweet fragrant sage that smells just like what its name implies – pineapple! The spikes of bright red blooms attract hummingbirds, and Pineapple Sage is wonderfully simple to grow in a container on a patio.
• Lemon Verbena will evoke the essence of fresh lemons in your garden, enticing you to stay a little longer. This herb is a wonderful addition to a container on your deck or patio, to a vegetable garden or an herb garden situated outside of your kitchen door.

Other Herbs: Basil, Rosemary, Artemisia, Bee Balm, Sweet Marjoram, Catmint, Lemon Balm, Common Sage.

Visit any English Gardens location for more information on caring for your garden.