Smells!

I was recently taken to task for not emphasizing enough the importance of smell when writing about the rose. Fair enough, for the perfume of a rose is clearly a delight, and moreover there is a perfume for every nose, which is in fact one of the problems in writing about smells in a garden. How often have you been asked to put your nose in a rose,or indeed other flowers, with the expectation that you will comment favourably when the truth is that you cannot smell a thing? And not only is everybody's ability to smell different, but weather conditions and time of day play a very big role.  Scent as Peter Beales, one of England's leading rose experts, states in his catalogue is a very subjective matter, and it is for this reason  he provides no code on the subject.

But there are some scents that are almost impossible to miss. You are walking round a garden and suddenly on the air a lovely perfume arrives, and you wonder where it is coming from - and not only in a garden. Many of you will have driven into Toulouse in early summer, and suddenly a lovely scent - I am not good at describing scents, but a sweetish vanilla comes to mind - will enter the car. It derives from the much planted Eleagnus angustifolia. The flower producing this scent is an insignificant yellow, as with others in the family, but the plant has nice enough silvery leaves, and is well worth a place in any garden. Some prefer E. Quicksilver, which is definitely more impressive, that is to say more silvery, in the Spring, but increasingly I find that E. angustifolia wears better as the summer progresses, though neither is good in the autumn. A variety I do not care for much is E.x  ebbingei, often sold as part of a mixed hedge. Its dull silvery green  does not do anything for me, but it does have the lovely smell, this time in the autumn.

 What other plants are generous with their scent? Daphnes come to mind, though I find them difficult plants to grow well in our region; indeed in my opinion they are always a bit difficult, having a tendency to die for no good reason, though in our neck of the woods mostly through lack of water. Still D. x burkwoodii and its variegated clones, and D odora with its variegated clones are all worth a try, and I know of one garden that for many years had a marvellous D. bhola Jacqueline Postill whose scent very early in the year was almost overpowering, but then this garden was much closer into the Pyrenees than most of ours are, which since the plant comes originally from the Himalayas, may be the reason for its success.

Honeysuckles are not altogether easy with us, not wanting to be too dry, and on a hot wall they can be savagely attacked by greenfly.  The most smelly, with a scent that does carry, is probably the Lonicera japonica group, especially L. jap. Halliana, but beware: they are very thuggish and can very quickly look a complete mess, so certainly not for small garden. Also bear in mind that not all honeysuckles do have smell, though in the case of L. x tellmanniana and L. tragophylla this is compensated by the fact that the flower power is excellent. Both of these require some shade, as indeed do most honeysuckles.

However the best climbing plants for scent for us are probably the trachelospermums, usually T. jasminoides: smartish evergreen leaves, though a cold winter can make them look a little bit dingy, and as the name suggests white jasmine like flowers in great profusion over quite a long period in early summer. In my view they are a must, smarter and easier than many actual jasmines, though obviously jasmines are worth considering. One of the most smelly jasmines is Jasminum sambac, but it is definitely tender, though I am hoping that mine may survive outside in a very protected spot. It did last year.  Other very smelly ones include J. officinale var. grandiflorum, the so-called Jasmine de Grasse, and J. polyanthum, often sold as an indoor plant, but both these two are fairly tender, and can be severely hit by a cold winter.

A lot of the viburnums have excellent scent, and scent that carries, but since they are such a useful shrub for us in so many ways they deserve a blog to themselves. Already mentioned in an earlier blog, as a wonderful winter shrub on account of its smell, is Lonicera fragrantissima, and the very similar L. x purpusii,and L. standishii. All these will scent a winter garden - slightly lemony - if there is the slightest hint of sun, and this for more than a month. So do plant one or two, even if for the rest of year they do not do very much.

Finally a return to the rose, and where we started. For me the most reliably smelly remains Mme Isaac Perere, and though I do not really like its rather dull deep red colour, and it is slightly inclined to blackspot, it is rose that I have always had in any garden that I have been associated with. My most favourite rose, Fantin Latour, has very good smell - Yan Surguet, newly set up as rose grower in the Ariege, calls the smell 'ennivrant' which I cannot find in any of my dictionaries, but it sounds exciting.  Most of the hybrid musks, that include Felicia and Penelope, still some of the most useful roses, especially for mixed planting, have goodish scent, while David Austin, with some justification, takes great pride in the fact that many of his roses are highly scented, and those that he particularly signals out for this  are Jude the Obscure, Gertrude Jekyll, Claire Austin, Strawberry Hill and Tea Clipper.