When creating a balcony garden, established roses or flowering shrubs aren’t needed to incorporate fragrance into your selected area. There are numerous plants that are easy to grow, adaptable to container gardening, and known for their wonderfully scented flowers. Scents have a delightful impact and with them you can create a truly scentsational haven for your relaxation and enjoyment.
Plants To Grow For Fragrance
The following plants have fragrant flowers that most people enjoy. They’re readily available as seeds or bedding plants at most nursery or garden centers.
- Mignonette (Reseda odorata) An old-fashioned, sweet-scented flower, mignonette is a quintessential favorite of fragrance gardeners. The 12 to 18-inch plants are rather homely and the flowers inconspicuous – small and greenish yellow – but the lack of beauty is surely made up for in the intensely sweet perfume. The seeds can be sown directly into your container as the plant blooms quickly from seed. The sweet fragrance has been variously described as the scent of new mown hay, vanilla, fresh peaches or raspberries.
- Stock (Matthiola incana, longipetala) Stocks are among the oldest and best-loved garden plants. The deliciously scented flowers, ranging in color from pastel to intense, are borne in branching spikes on soft velvety-leaved one to two-foot tall plants. Stocks make excellent cut flowers and thus their perfume can be brought indoors. Sweet and spicy is the fragrance that emanates from stocks, similar to the clove-like scent of carnation.
- Heliotrope (Heliotropium arborescens) A favorite of many fragrance garden lovers, heliotrope is sometimes called Cherry-Pie Plant for its delicious aroma. The large scented flower heads, slightly reminiscent of brain coral, range in color from white to dark violet and balance atop 12-inch dark-leaved compact plants. The paler flowers often have the strongest cherry pie or sweet almond scent.
- Sweet Pea (Lathyrus odoratus) Supreme in fragrance and cut flower value, sweet pea blossoms can flood a balcony with their perfume. Sweet peas offer one of the widest color ranges in the plant kingdom, and include crimson reds, navy blues, pastel lavenders, pinks and the purest whites. The ruffled blossoms look like little butterflies all aflutter. Most sweet peas are climbers, but dwarf bush types are available and more appropriate for most containers. The old-fashioned types exude the most powerful scent, which has been described as a captivating blend of honey and orange blossom.
- Four O’Clock (Mirabilis jalapa) This old-fashioned perennial is so called because the flowers open in late afternoon, emanating their lovely scent throughout the evening and into the early morning hours. Clusters of trumpet-shaped blooms in cheerful shades of pink, yellow, purple or white cover the bushy two-foot plants. The fragrant blossoms attract hummingbirds in daylight and moths at nighttime as they emit their sweet citrus scent.
- Flowering Tobacco (Nicotiana alata, sylvestris) A mainstay of old-fashioned gardens, these stately plants range in height from two to six feet. The nodding tubular flowers are similar to petunia blossoms but are longer. They droop unapologetically by day but open up at dusk, filling the evening air with a warm sweet fragrance. The white and pale colors produce a stronger scent than the darker red and magenta shades.
- Petunia (X hybrida) This highly popular container plant is very adaptable, long-flowering and easy to grow. Petunias come in a full range of colors and just one of these prolific plants can add a blaze of color to any garden. The softly ruffled blossoms have a pleasant fragrance, especially in the older heirloom types such as the balcony petunia and the old-fashioned climbing petunia which release their strong lily-like fragrance at dusk.
- Dianthus (Caryophyllaceae chinensis, heddewigii) Another popular bedding plant and a favorite for centuries, dianthus – also known as pinks – are loved for their cheerful array of blooms ranging in color from softest white to darkest magenta. The flowers are single, semi-double or fully double and are circular, often with fringed petals. Dianthus are famously fragrant for their spicy clove-like or cinnamon scent.
- Sweet Alyssum (Alyssum maritimum) This tidy little plant, often just a few inches tall, bears clusters of tiny white, rose or purple blossoms. A wave of these flowers can soften pots or boxes, filling in or spilling over the container edges. Sweet alyssum exudes a wonderful honey-scented fragrance throughout the day.
Selection of Fragrant Flowers
On the practical side, too many fragrant flowers in a small location can be overwhelming. So you may want to select just one or two of your favorites. And be sure to read seed packet or plant container information carefully as some strains are much more fragrant than others.
As a refreshing perfume wafts across your balcony, you’ll surely appreciate the rewards of a garden dedicated to fragrance as well as beauty.