The sweet smell of success

PLANTING some highly-fragrant nemesia in pots on my patio recently made me think about the importance of scent to a garden.

You can have wonderful aromas on your patio or, further up the garden, the smell of deliciously-perfumed shrubs can fill the air.

If you only have room for one large scented plant at the back of your border, make it a mock orange (philadelphus), whose white flowers appear in profusion in June and July and whose rich orange-blossom fragrance can be enjoyed from a good distance away on warm summer evenings.

It grows to around 6ft (1.8 metres), although dwarf and taller varieties are available. It is easy to grow almost anywhere – in poor soil, salt-laden air or other inhospitable environments – but for the best results give it a sunny spot.

Of course, the obvious suspects to include in your scented scheme are honeysuckles and lilies, which will have a more intoxicating fragrance grown within an arbour or sheltered patio than in windy, exposed sites. Roses, too, provide a heady perfume.

Position fragrant blooms where they will be most appreciated. Visitors can brush against low hedges of lavender on a garden path and pots of fragrant annuals such as the trailing Surfinia ‘Blue Vein’ can be mounted on walls at sniffing height, while night-scented stocks and nicotiana planted below a window will create a wonderful scent indoors on summer evenings.

Dianthus, a genus that incorporates pinks, border carnations and sweet Williams, can also add the exotic aroma of cloves, while border phlox (Phlox paniculata) flowers from mid-summer to autumn and generates a delicious perfume.

Many herbs are also wonderfully aromatic as well as decorative. Thyme can trail over walls in rockeries or scree beds, rosemary has fantastic silver-grey, needle-like leaves and sage, basil and mint also add their own scent.

Conifers can also provide scent as well as height and year-round interest. Cupressus Goldcrest Wilma, an evergreen conifer with bright green, lemon-scented foliage, is often bought small to add height and foliage contrast to both summer and winter pots, although if planted out its eventual height will be 6ft.

Each year, I plant wigwams of sweet peas both in my borders and in patio pots, which will give me fabulous colour and scent throughout the summer. You need to cut them regularly to produce more flowers throughout the season, so it’s a double whammy as the smell of bunches of colourful sweet-peas permeates through the house as well.

Many aromatic plants require full sun and can tolerate drought conditions, such as scented geraniums, whose leaves emit an enticing aroma.

Mediterranean plants often like well-drained, gritty soil and a sunny aspect, so if you have heavy soil you may be better off raising the planting area to improve drainage and also bring the plants with their flowers and foliage closer to the nose.

Scent doesn’t have to be confined to summer. Spring charmers include lilacs, daphnes and viburnums, while many spring-flowering bulbs, including hyacinths and some narcissi, are also fragrant.

And if you want to prolong your scented summer garden into autumn, plant foliage shrubs such as Elaeagnus pungens ‘maculata’, which produce fragrant small white flowers.