Next Wave of Fragrant Flowers

The roses have started to bloom, first as usual is Zepherine Drouhin, which has a delicate rose scent.

And she is thornless, as well.  Another thornless rose is a white once-blooming old garden rose (OGR) given to me, so NOID.  It has a light OGR type scent and is very prolific, but lost its support so is flopped over.

Champney's Pink Cluster has really outdone itself this year, really loaded and fragrant enough to waft a light rose scent.

The flowers are borne profusely and blow rather fast, starting pink and becoming whiter as they age.

Another fragrant rose, with very large apricot blooms, is my favorite for blossoms, Apricot Nectar, an older Floribunda, now over my head.  The flowers are 5-6" across when fully open, and truly magnificent.

Another rose which is nearly scentless but included for its brilliant color, is Dublin Bay, which has extremely long-lasting blooms.  It has been a very slow grower but seems unaffected by the rose disease that decimated some of my roses last year.

Sombreuil, a climbing rose, has an old rose scent and a high petal count in a quartered bloom.  It doesn't have a very long bloom season.

On to some non-rose scented flowers.  One of my favorites is Valerian, with an intense scent that demands a lot of sniffing.  They self-sow slowly so can multiply, and this year are over my head.

The flower famous as a perfume scent, Lily of the Valley, has enchanting small bells but a very short bloom season.  White flowers have such a glare, they are hard to photograph.:-(

A rare scented flower, one I got from Collector's Nursery, is Abelia mosanensis, which I admired for its wonderful fragrance in their gardens, and bought in '02, but it is just now blooming for me for the first time.  I did have it in a different location where it did not seem to be doing well and moved it to my concrete front porch bed where it receives more heat and frost protection.  It is quite different from the other Abelias in flower form and leaf/shrub form, being a rather lax grower that for me requires some support from a trellis.  I hope to get several flushes of bloom but I'll have to see how it does.  Nice little bouquets.

 Finally, a real spring charmer, earlier than the regular daylilies, Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus, the lemon lily.  Rather than smelling like lemons it smells like orange or lemon flowers, and has a nice strong scent unlike regular daylilies.  It multiplies well and has been divided several times to produce several nice clumps.

You can see it is a regular bloom machine for several weeks.  This plant has been in place for 3 years.  The fragrance even wafts a little and is delightful.

Well, I hope you are taking time to smell the roses and other worthy scents in your garden, and happy summer!

Hannah