Ottawa Horticultural Society

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Fragrance In The Garden

For new homeowners, with a new garden to plan, do not forget that Agriculture Canada issues pamphlets on every aspect of gardening and help is as near as the Sir John Carling building in the Experimental Farm. For those with gardens already established, if you need a flowerbed for roses, do not hesitate to dig up your lawn. A round bed (easier to push the lawn-mower around) filled with about ten roses, more than compensates for the missing grass. Assuming that you have your flowerbeds decided upon, here are some of the flowers and shrubs that will add a new dimension to your garden, as the wind carries their scent to greet you.

How eagerly we look for the first flowers in the Spring and if they are scented also, what a joy they are! Naturally we think of violets, but our violets bloom in May, with little or no perfume. However, you can have a few of the very dark coloured violets (viola odorata) with the authentic perfume, by begging some plants from a friend in Victoria, B.C., or growing your own plants from seed. They must be planted on the south side of the house in a sheltered corner where the snow melts early and you will find them blooming in April. Pick them and put them in a tiny glass vase, and enjoy that evocative perfume.

Among the earliest scented blooms is the tiny Iris Reticulata, blooming along with the crocus. It is a perfect little miniature iris, with a scent reminiscent of violets. Then comes an explosion of bloom with lily-of-the-valley and the small-cupped narcissi. Lilies-of-the-valley are ideal plants to grow under your shrubs. They require a shady spot, so the north side of the house is also a good place. They will multiply and you have to dig them up, and thin them every few years. They need feeding and watering in the fall, but otherwise are very tolerant of neglect. A huge bunch in your living room will perfume the whole house. Of the narcissi family the jonquils are the most fragrant, and ideal for your rockery. Bulbs can be obtained from Cruickshanks and should be planted in the Fall. They are dainty little blooms with a strong heady perfume. If you are lucky you can have Daphne Mezereum as one of your scented shrubs, but it is temperamental and will suddenly expire for no apparent reason. Grow it against your house wall facing East, or at the foot of a low terrace wall in the main garden. Daphne Burkwoodii (Somerset) blooms a little later; it has very fragrant paler pink blossoms.

For a perfume that is borne on every breeze in June, grow a Mock-Orange (Philadelphus). The shrub is about six feet in height and it will be covered with beautiful bell-shaped flowers. A good place for it is at the end of your garden, where it will act as a screen to hide your fence. If you have room for a crab apple tree, Bechtels crab-apple has beautiful blooms like tiny roses, with a musky perfume, and they are sterile, so you do not get crab-apples littering your lawn. No Spring is complete without the scent of lilacs, especially after rain. I grow a double-white, and "Etoile de Nancy", a deep pink. Again lilacs should be at the end of the garden, and no suckers should be allowed to grow.

Summer's bounty brings a host of fragrant flowers. Amongst the most-heavily perfumed are the lilies. My Regal lily scents the whole garden, but the perfume is too overpowering for the house. For beauty of form and colour, I grow the Imperial strain of lilies. Imperial Gold and Imperial Crimson are quite outstanding. Both are obtainable from C.A. Cruickshanks Ltd., 1015 Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto, Ont. M4P 2Ml. I find a Spring planting of the bulbs gives the best results. They love mushroom compost as a fertilizer, and must have good drainage and full sun.

Early summer brings the pinks (dianthus) with their clove-scented blooms. They spread rapidly, but who can resist their delightful blooms and grey-green foliage? I grow mine from seed obtained from any of the seed houses. Dead blooms must be kept clipped, which is time consuming. Some people prefer to grow "Enfant de Nice" Carnations, they buy the plants in flats and they give a very good show of scented blooms, but they will not be hardy like the pinks.

No scented garden would be complete without lavender. The shrub can be grown in the Ottawa area, but it is choosy about its site. I grew mine from seed, and placed the small plants at the base of a low wall. Now I have a bush about two feet tall and two feet wide. I get plenty of blooms and pick them to make lavender bags for the linen cupboard.

If you have a patio, where you like to sit after the sun goes down, do grow night-scented stock (Matthiola Bicornis) not far away from it, and you will find the night air filled with a clove-like perfume. It is an annual and needs full sun. It looks terrible in the day, as the flowers do not open until the evening so grow it around the base of your scented geranium plants whose luxuriant foliage will draw attention away from the miserable looking matthiola. Over your patio construct an arbour where you can grow climbers, especially honeysuckle with its sweet perfume (Shakespeare's eglantine). Also over your arbour grow some "Moon Flower" (Calonyction) enormous white trumpets like morning glories with an exquisite perfume. They must be started very early in the house (about March) and transplanted outside as Soon as there is no more risk of frost. They open only at night, and are probably pollinated by moths, as is the Yucca, another scented plant, with spectacular creamy bell-like clusters of flowers. It must have full sun and face south.

You must be wondering when I am going to mention sweet peas. Yes, they can be grown in Ottawa, but from my experience they are very fussy about their position in the garden. They hate to face south, and for me they bloom best facing east, where they receive the morning sun. They must have a net to climb up-( they are sold in garden centres) or you can construct a support from plastic covered wire. It should be a least 6 feet high. Seed houses sell a variety of sweet pea seeds, including some old fashioned kinds with a stronger perfume. Start in peat pots indoors and plant out in a deeply-dug, well-manured bed. Sweet-peas are greedy feeders. They will reward you with masses of blooms all summer long.

Now for the queen of flowers, the Rose. A rose bed should only contain roses, as they do not like to be mixed with other plants. We have to cosset the plants with a heavy mulch in winter. Even so, be prepared to replace your roses every three to four years. There are many variations in the scent of modem roses. "Fragrant Cloud", a hybrid tea, lives up to its name. "Crimson Glory" has a wonderful perfume, but hangs its head when it rains. My favourite is "Granada" a grandiflora, exquisite colouring in" two, shades of yellow and vermilion. "Chrysler Imperial" a deep red, has a good perfume. "Talisman" is very attractive and is very scented. "Mr. Lincoln" is a beautiful colour, deep crimson, and has a real rose perfume. "Sutters Gold" is a nicely scented yellow rose, not often seen nowadays. The Canadian Rose Annual carries a wealth of information on roses, and our own society library has some good books if you want to read up on this romantic flower.

Among the annuals, I always grow I0-week Stocks, which bloom all day, all the summer and evoke memories of English gardens. Buy plants; the seeds take too long in our short summer. The White Nicotiana also will give you a very sweet perfume, but it only opens towards evening. Sweet Alyssum is another rewarding little plant for your rockery, but it is the white-flowered kind that gives the perfume. The hostas in your shady areas will give beautiful foliage, and sweetly-scented flowers. Do not overlook the aromatic leaves of some plants like Monarda (bee-balm) and the artemesias with their grey-green, rather pungent foliage, and of course, thyme is ideal to grow between the stones on your patio or paths, as it does not mind being stepped upon. The ubiquitous petunia also will release a faint, elusive perfume when the sun goes down. Acidanthera Murielae will bloom in August with a heavy lily-like perfume. It is a bulb which should be planted in the Spring and taken up in the Pall and stored in a cool place.

Last, but not least in my garden I have English wallflowers, and I regard their presence as a miracle. As you know, in England they are a biennial, and it is tough trying to grow them here. They must bloom the first year here, and all my efforts met with failure, until I bought a packet of seeds (which had been produced in New Zealand) in the winter of 1978, when I was in Barbados. I planted the seeds indoors in March and put the plants outside when all danger of frost was past. They bloomed that summer and were the authentic velvety blooms in gold and bronze and crimson with that spicy perfume. I saved the seed, but found to my delight that they had self-sown, and were coming up as soon as the snow had gone. They bloomed all the summer to freeze-up. So now I think they will come up every year. Let us hope it is not a case of pride going before a fall!

This is only a brief outline of scented plants that can be grown in Ottawa.

Library shelves all carry books on the subject of the fragrant garden for the interested person. Of course, a garden should contain non-scented plants also, but it is greatly enhanced by growing these scented "love some" flowers, giving us so much pleasure.

Gardening" like all the important and delightful things in life, is worthwhile only when you do it yourself. The insolent and wealthy can decree gardens and miss every drop of nectar they contain. Only folk with frequently soiled hands and almost permanent cricks in their backs during the growing season are aware of the manifold delights and dismays in the, outwardly mild avocation of gardening for fun. Actually it is a furious and nerve-straining pastime. A sixteenth of an acre can furnish space for violent exercise and virtually all human emotions. - John Day.

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