"Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same." - Helen Keller
Walk outside and take a deep breath. What is it you smell? Is it a petrichor after rain, a freshly mown lawn, or refreshing fresh air? All these are great, but why not add something … better!,
Scent is an essential component to choosing flowering and ornamental perennials, and flowers with wonderful fragrances are an added layer of appeal to your landscape! Flowers that give off scent also attract pollinators and enrich our landscape! Since ancient times, inhaling the fragrance of flowers has been practiced to reduce stress, fight inflammation and depression, and induce sleep!
Check out some of Nature Hills Nursery’s favorite scented perennial plants!
When selecting your newest perfumed garden addition, be sure to choose flowers that bloom more than once a year! This not only extends your enjoyment of these Perennial blooms but gives you more bang for your buck!
More blooms also mean more stems to snip and bring that scent indoors, so your bouquets and table centerpieces carry that fantastic element into your home to improve your health and wellness of your mind, body, and spirit! They are one of the many parts of a Sensory Garden and just make the world a better place!
From sweet and syrupy to citrusy or floral, spicy and nose-tickling, to herbal and medicinal, scent can trigger memories, improve mood, and calm the nerves!
Place aromatic plants in high-traffic areas, in containers to keep them closer to your seating areas on your porch or deck, scent your reading and yoga nooks, or include in any garden to turn any area into a pollinator and cut flower garden! Keep these fragrant, low-growing plants near nose level by planting them in raised gardens and planters!
Top 5 Most Fragrant Perennials
Without further ado, here are Nature Hills Nursery’s favorite fragrant Perennials!
#5 Perfumed Phlox
The Phlox plant was originally found in North America and comes from a Greek word meaning flame. It belongs to the Polemoniaceae family. The aromatic, showy flowers of the Phlox plant have quickly grown in popularity and they display their bright colors in summer and autumn. Some blooms have contrasting colored eyes or bi-color flowers. All have an enjoyable spicy-sweet clove-like fragrance and attract Hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies.
The plants also differ in size; some are erect perennials and others are mat-forming. There are Tall Garden Phlox, Creeping Phlox, and many Hybrid Phlox that are easy care and scented!
- Tall Garden Phlox
- Creeping Phlox
- Laura Hardy Tall Phlox
#4 Irresistible Iris
Many Irises are fantastically fragrant - some even smell like sweet grape jelly, chocolate, or citrus! Bearded Iris especially carry intense fragrance, look great in a vase, and thrive in a wide range of conditions and even some shade! Cold-hardy and ever-spreading, bigger and better, these are old-fashioned garden standards.
- Clarence Tall Bearded Iris- Ice blue fragrant blooms
- Immortality Tall Bearded Iris - White and fringed blooms
- Iris Variegata - Gold and green variegated Iris that smells like grape jelly!
- Dwarf Iris often has a delightfully sweet scent
#3 Peony Parfum!
Peony Plants are highly sought-after for their voluminous pompoms of creamy, creamy petals that are heavily saturated with a deep perfume fragrance. A favorite flower of weddings, these long-lasting, fluffy perennials come in pink, red, white, and yellow. They grow well in zones 2-9. They should be planted in the fall. Each spring, they will return to welcome in the new season with their glorious scent! Not only will you adore them, but so will every hummingbird, honeybee, and butterfly in the area!
- Duchesse de Nemours
- Bartzella Itoh Peony
- Dr. Alexander Fleming
- Festiva Maxima
- Pecher Peony
#2 The Mighty Mint Family
Why should blooms get all the attention? The foliage of anything in the Mint family is well-known for its aromatic and medicinal perfume! Uplifting, soothing, and sometimes even flavorful, these plants carry that scent from head to toe!
Fill a garden of the senses with plants that fill the air with their fragrance as you walk past them, brush their leaves, or harvest them for your recipes, tea, and bouquets (because their blooms are beautiful and aromatic too!)!
- Mints, Peppermints, Spearmints, and the like
- Catmints and Catnips
- Russian Sage
- Many Herbs - Sage, Basil, Lavender, Oregano, and Thyme, just to name a few
#1 Spring Flowering Bulbs
Strong sweet ephemerals with powerful fragrance, these incredibly colorful and easy-to-grow spring-flowering and summer-blooming bulbs grow in a wide range of conditions, sizes, colors, and forms! Plant these beauties in the fall, and they will return each spring before retreating from the summer sun!
- Lily of the Valley
- Hyacinth and Grape Hyacinth (Muscari)
- Tulips
- Daffodils
- Paperwhite Narcissus
Honorable Mentions:
It’s hard to choose just five flowering perennials since so many are deliciously perfumed! And who can forget scented Dianthus with their peppery clove-like Carnation-family scent? Many summer-flowering bulbs like Lilies can fill a room (indoors or out) with their heady perfume!
All About Perennial Care & Maintenance
Unlike woody shrubs and trees, Perennials tend to die back to their crowns each autumn once the frost and snow have settled into the picture. Leaving behind their stems, some dead leaves, and maybe some seed heads for birds and winter interest, but usually are MIA until next spring. But once they start growing again, Perennials are bigger and better each year!
There are Perennials for full sun, partial shade, and full shade, Perennials that do well in moist soil and in drier, more xeric conditions, and large or small Perennial plants for gardens of all shapes and sizes! But they are all pretty easy to care for once you have selected plants suited for your sun and soil requirements and your unique hardiness zone!
Basic Perennial Care
Easy to grow and care for, they require just a few simple steps and maintenance to keep those colorful, fragrant blooms returning!
- Proper sun or shade requirements
- Fertilize in spring and again in mid-summer
- Moderate, consistent moisture for the best bloom
- A 3-4 inch thick layer of Arborist bark chips year-round
- Prune back each fall after frost or very early spring before they grow
- Clean up the mound in spring
- Some benefit from division every 3-5 years
Follow Your Nose!
Any one of these perennials with their beauty and fragrance will turn your home garden into a showplace that you can enjoy with more than just your eyes! You’ll add a completely new dimension to your garden experience and feel the world become lifted from your shoulders and worries from your mind!
Keep Those Blooms More Fragrant
- Avoid pesticides and chemical fertilizers - they harm pollinators and take away from the scent.
- Use drip irrigation - Avoid getting the flowers wet if able, so water at the roots
- Time of day and weather - Flowers tend to smell better in the morning before the sun evaporates the volatile oils.
- Keep your cut flowers smelling great longer by trimming the stems each day, keeping your vases and water clean with daily changes, using flower food, and keeping your blooms out of drafts/heating vents and full sun.
Stop and smell more than just the Roses with these easy-care ornamental Perennials! Perfume your world with these and many more scented flowers available at Nature Hills. You will enjoy seeing … and smelling your landscape!
Happy Planting!
