About this box
A garden you can smell is one you remember. The Scented Garden Collection brings together ten plants chosen for fragrance first, so there is something scenting the air from the first wallflowers in spring to the last nicotiana in autumn, and from morning through to well after dark.
Spring opens with Wallflower Fair Lady, soft pastels carrying the full clove wallflower scent. In May and June, Sweet Rocket fills the evening with violets and cloves, and Sweet William Auricula Eyed brings a rich clove perfume, one small bunch enough to scent a room. Summer belongs to the sweet peas: Black Knight, the 1898 variety still used as the benchmark for sweet pea scent, and Mollie Rilstone, cream edged with rose and a favourite among sweet pea growers for its powerful old-fashioned fragrance.
The evening is where this box comes into its own. Night-scented stock looks unremarkable by day, then gives the strongest scent of any hardy annual as the light goes, and Nicotiana White Trumpets opens its long white flowers at dusk with the strongest evening fragrance in the garden. Alyssum Carpet of Snow runs along path edges with a honey scent far bigger than its tiny flowers. Two perennials add scented leaves to brush past: Monarda, which smells of Earl Grey, and Agastache Liquorice Blue, which smells of aniseed.
Where to put a scented garden
Plant for where you will be. Stocks, nicotiana and sweet rocket belong by a seat you use after supper, under an open window or beside a path you walk in the evening. Alyssum goes along edges and between paving, and the agastache and monarda where you will brush them as you pass. Five annuals flower the first summer, three biennials follow the next spring, and two perennials come back for years.
Wallflowers and nicotiana are poisonous if eaten, so keep seeds and plants away from small children and pets. Full instructions are printed on every packet. Ten full-sized packets in our signature eco-friendly packaging – a gift for anyone who loves to sit out on a summer evening.
