A well designed landscape attempts to stimulate our five senses of sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste.  With that in mind, adding scented plants to create a fragrant garden can be the most surprising and rewarding of all garden design, by tickling our sense of smell.

Some plants, such as Gardenia and Roses, are universally known for their beautiful fragrance, and are added to gardens for just that reason.  Others, such as Crinum Lily and Angel's Trumpet, are not as well known, but can bring as much pleasure as their better known garden mates.  As well, most scented plants do not provide scent year-around, so to create a fragrant garden for almost all seasons, one must plant a variety of scented plants.  With that, not only will your landscape be diverse in scent and texture (touch), you will also have the added benefit of flowers (sight) and possibly taste (with herbs, like Rosemary and Mint).  As an added bonus, plants like Loquat, Citrus, and Magnolia provide a food source for birds and wildlife (sound), after their scented flowers have passed.  Why, one might even say that the beginning of a full-senses garden experience begins with scented plants!

Selecting scented plants for a fragrant garden is easier than you think.  As always, you must take into consideration the plants preferred planting sight (sun, soil, etc.) as well as it's size at maturity, and then simply begin adding them to your current landscape.  Alternatively, you can build and design your landscape around scented plants, selecting ones that bloom in different seasons.  As always, half the fun in gardening is experimenting, so just enjoy the process and no doubt, you will be amply rewarded!

Any of these easy-care scented plants would make a wonderful addition to your fragrant garden:

• Carolina Yellow Jasmine
• Sumbac a/k/a Arabian Jasmine
• Confederate Jasmine
• Night Blooming Jasmine
• Star Jasmine
• Anise
• Loquat
• Magnolia
• Citrus, all varieties
• Crinum Lily
• Angel's Trumpet
• Roses, not all varieties
• Society Garlic (not pleasant smelling to all)
• Butterfly Ginger
• Tea Olive
• Rosemary and many other herbs
• Gardenia

All of the plants listed above are well-suited for Tampa landscapes (zone 9) and are generally drought tolerant and low maintenance.  As well, some of them provide a heavy scent, while others, a more light and subtle fragrance, providing an opportunity for all gardener's to find the perfect plant, to tickle their senses!

Let's Get Growing, Folks!

Donell