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Your garden is your sanctuary, and there’s no better way to keep up the serenity by having beautiful aromas wafting. Within the home, it’s as simple as lighting a candle or baking a batch of cookies. But with wind, temperature and the outdoor elements against you, it can be quite tricky to keep fragrance within your backyard.
Of course, the first thing to turn to is your plants. With so many scents borne from florals and blooms, your garden beds are literally a haven for your nose. From roses to sweet peas to gardenias, plants are full of beautiful smells.
Before you pick out your plants, there are a couple of things to consider.
Planting a fragrant garden doesn’t just come down to picking a couple of flowering plants that you like. Instead, there’s location, season and even type of scent that you need to explore.
Make your garden smell amazing by thinking about these five things:
1. Plant according to season
When first looking at sweet-smelling plants you wish to have, it’s important to consider their flowering season or when they’re at their most fragrant.
This is so your garden is not left high and dry during certain months of the year or alternatively, overpowered with too many different cloying scents.
Winter
As winter comes around, you may think that the time for flowering plants are over. If anything it has only just begun! This beautiful Daphne (Daphne odora) flowers in winter and emits a sweet smell that is reminiscent of orange blossoms. What could be better than something rich, sweet and citrusy to keep your garden wrapped in scent during the winter months?
Other great winter flowering plants that smell nice include wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox), port-wine magnolia (Magnolia figo) and winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum).
Spring
During the spring-time you’re spoiled for choice, but we are particularly partial to the scent of gardenia (Gardenia jasminoides). The strong floral aroma from those white blooms are the perfect accompaniment to spring-time cleaning and to mark the start of sunny weather.
If you’re going for pops of colour and scent, then head for narcissus varieties, freesias or hyacinths (Hyacinthus orientalis). Or even good old frangipani (Plumeria rubra) will give a nice waft to the nose!
Summer
Wisteria smells as wistful as it looks. If you’re hoping to create that cottage-garden, whimsical feel with your fragrance, then this is the plant for you. Keep in mind that this one is a climbing vine, so you’ll need a trellis, fence or outdoor wall to keep it growing steady and strong!
Summer is the perfect time to let loose on all the aromatic plants, so bring out the roses and lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and jasmine (Jasminum officinale) to give your outdoor space a smash of scents!
Autumn
Autumn seems like a quiet time for fragrance, and it can be tricky with lots of wind and blustery weather. For a hint of sweetness, try out viola and lilac (Syringa vulgaris).
Perfect to complement all the orange hues of deciduous trees, these cutesy purple plants will freshen the smell of your garden.
2. Consider your windows and doors
Your windows and doors are the bridge between inside and outside. If you want to bring that natural fragrance into your home, it should be all about planting climbing vines over the doorway, and fragrant hedges under the windows.
Climbing jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) is a great way to get that citrusy, cloying scent straight into the indoor spaces in your home. Plant around a doorway or window frame and keep everything open during good weather. You’ll find yourself not needing to reach for a candle or diffuser when you’ve got this plant blooming.
Hedging plants like Murraya, or even rose bushes under your window will further perfume your bedrooms and bathrooms. If you’re in an apartment, utilise your balcony by planting fragrant herbs, and smaller pot-friendly plants like heliotrope (Heliotropium europaeum).
3. Think beyond flowers
Flowers aren’t the only part of the garden that let off a scent. When you think about it, most plants have some sort of fragrance to them, it’s just about whether you like that smell or not. Some varieties of salt-bush (Atriplex) for example, can smell quite fishy, so you’ll want a nice, strong aroma to cover that scent up!
When planning out your fragrant garden, it’s important to think beyond the flowers. In your vegie patch, you’ve got a multitude of plants that will be aromatic enough to let off a nice perfume.
One of our favourite picks for perfume is actually the tomato plant! Especially after lots of sunlight, your tomato leaves, flowers and fruit have the most delicious sweet and juicy aroma. There have even been some perfumes and eau de toilettes made with capturing the scent of the tomato plant (Solanum lycopersicum).
If you’re limited in space, or love growing those herbs, make sure to add the most fragrant ones to the front of your pots or beds, including basil (Ocimum basilicum), rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus) and sage (Salvia officinalis).
Imagine your backyard smelling of fresh basil and tomato each time you step out to enjoy the sunshine!
4. Choose locations that are used often
Backyards are often filled with different location ‘pockets’ that are used more frequently than others. Think of your clothesline, barbecue area and your patio, and any other places that have high foot traffic.
When looking at location, consider these spaces and plant your more fragrant plants as close as possible. This will ensure that the scent is not lost in the garden bed and can always be enjoyed!
A great way to think about planting for scent is by looking at your pathways. Whether they’re defined paths within the garden or routes often used, place your lavender pots and herb borders close to these locations.
For entertaining and barbecue areas, it’s important to remember that the spaces are used by guests and visitors. If there are any flowers or plants that can elicit hay fever symptoms, then they may be best avoided (regardless of how good they smell!).
5. Explore native planting
Finally, there’s no better way to create scent and aroma in your garden than choosing Australian native plants. Some plants that are indigenous to Australia have a scent when crushed between the fingers, like tea-tree (Melaleuca alternifolia), but there are many more that are perfect to perfume a garden.
Lemon myrtle (Backhousia citriodora) is a great example of a native flowering plant with a beautiful aroma. This plant is intensely citrusy in both smell and flavour, and will work wonders in your garden.
Other varieties like cinnamon myrtle (Backhousia myrtifolia) are just as potent, and just as pretty as well!
