Underwhelmed by Your Fragrant Flowers? Scent-Stacking Is the New Garden Trend That Turns Borders Into a Wall of Perfume

We most often choose plants for the garden for their visual appeal: a large flowering shrub to anchor a corner of the garden or bright perennials that bloom in beds throughout summer. But what about choosing plants for how they scent the garden?

Choosing and placing fragrant plants thoughtfully in your garden creates a phenomenon known as scent stacking or layering. This means planning for scents that overlap in timing, intensity, and character. A careful plan for scent stacking will help you create a garden with a continuous cloud of delightful fragrance from morning to night and spring to fall.

Understanding Scent Character

Most of us know what we like to smell, but don’t really understand it. Mixing flower scents is a lot like perfume blending, which requires balancing top, middle, and base notes:

• Top notes are light and airy. They catch your attention right away and have light and fresh notes. Think citrusy herbs, like lemon verbena, and other fresh scents, like mint, basil, and eucalyptus.
• Middle notes are a little deeper. In the garden they are herbal and floral, like roses, lilac, hyacinth, and lily of the valley.
• Base notes in fragrance mixing are deeper and linger longer than top and middle notes. Jasmine, lavender, and gardenia are good examples. They get stronger in the heat, and often at night.

Understanding notes means you can craft a better garden blend. You want a mix of different notes to create a unique and lasting symphony of scent.

Shop Fragrant Shrubs

Layering Scents by Height

Another important consideration in scent stacking is literal stacking. Consider the heights of different aromatic plants, so that you will enjoy their scents at different levels. This also allows the scents to mingle in pleasing ways.

For low-level fragrant plants, try thyme, sweet alyssum, and creeping phlox. They’ll smell nice right away but also release more aroma as the sun warms them.

Lavender and roses are great for middle height fragrance. For taller plants, use vining flowers, like jasmine, climbing roses, and honeysuckle. Flowering trees can also provide towering fragrance. Try apple and crabapple, crepe myrtle, and sweetbay magnolia.

Shop Fragrant Herbs

Layering Scents by Time of Day

Another dimension to consider in scent layering is time. Some plants offer more fragrance in the morning or during the day, while others really shine at night. Some ideas for sweet morning scents include hyacinth, lily of the valley, and roses.

Daytime or afternoon fragrances often come most strongly from plants that are activated by sunlight and warmth. Oils release in the heat of the day, making plants like rosemary, lavender, thyme, and other herbs highly fragrant.

Several night blooming plants put out their best aromas in the evening. It’s fun to create a strong scent mix for pleasant summer evenings on the patio or deck. Try nicotiana (flowering tobacco), moonflower, evening stock, angel’s trumpet, and, for dry, desert gardens, Queen of the Night, a night-blooming cactus. To enjoy these fragrant night bloomers, place them close to evening seating areas.

Layering Scents by Season

Finally, you can expand your time layering to include different seasons of scent. Include fragrant plants that bloom in spring, summer, and fall (and winter, of course, if you garden in a warm climate). From spring to fall, here are some ideas for ensuring continuous growing season fragrance:

• Spring: Hyacinth, early-blooming roses, lilac, fothergilla, crab apple, lily of the valley, daphne, jasmine
• Early Summer: Gardenia, mock orange, roses, peonies
• Mid to Late Summer: Phlox, lilies, most herbs, including lavender, dianthus, bee balm, tuberose, honeysuckle, jasmine
• Late Summer to Fall: Nicotiana, autumn clematis, chocolate cosmos, glossy abelia, reblooming roses, fragrant cyclamen, silverberry

Shop Fragrant Flowers

Bloom times, and how long they last, vary depending on climate and growing zone. Aim for a good variety of spring-to-fall blooms and plan for overlap, so you get consistent fragrance without any gaps.

Layering Scents by Location

One final consideration for creating a dramatic scent garden is where you place each of these aromatic plants. Concentrating them all in one spot or in an area of the garden you don’t frequent often defeats the purpose of scent layering.

The best places for aromatic plants are where you and others can enjoy them: along walkways, near patios and other seating areas, close to windows that will be open in nice weather.

You’ll also want to consider environmental factors and placement. For instance, for some plants, like herbs, you’ll get more fragrance by placing them in locations with strong afternoon sunlight. Consider where the wind blows, and how it will move scents around the garden. Also keep in mind that aromas will be more concentrated in more enclosed spaces, like porches and patios.

Planning a scent-layered garden takes some effort and careful thought, but it’s worth the results. Thoughtfully arranged scents have a big impact on mood and creating memories and give you a garden that inspires on multiple levels.