I love having beautiful vases of flowers around my home (all picked from my garden), and it's even better when the flowers are scented. My all-time favourite is wintersweet which has been out of bloom for several months. In early spring I had plenty of bulbs like hyacinths, earlycheer and freesias, but when they finished up I had to do without scent for a while. Now I'm happy to have a couple of different lovely smelling varieties to choose from! First is jasmine which is adorning this arrangement of roses, carnations and lambs ears. Jasmine is good value scent-wise as a tiny sprig like this will still perfume a whole room. And if you pick a sprig of the carmine pink buds, they keep opening and emitting their fragrance in the vase.
Carnations have their spicy clove fragrance too if you bury your nose in the petals. The only disappointment is that the roses aren't scented too.
Here's another arrangement with my other scented star - sweet peas. They are arranged here with red carnations and pink-white heuchera stems. I was delighted walking in the garden today to discover the sweet peas are in bloom! They have self seeded from last year and all are the deep purple colour with a lovely classic fragrance. They only last a few days in the vase but they are worth it, and there are so many buds coming on that I'll be able to keep refreshing it!
It's funny how arrangements always look much better in the flesh. Whenever I photograph them they become quite static and angular. I'm thinking that this one up above could benefit from a little sprig of some kind of delicate foliage in that space in the front left... note to self for next time!
What are your favourite scented blooms for summer?
Sweet peas get my vote too! I have pale pink and dark maroon colours self-seeded too.
ReplyDeleteI love it when they self seed... one less thing for me to worry about planting :)
DeleteI have Philadelphus, Honeysuckle, and Roses all smelling gorgeous in the garden at the moment. I don't usually grow sweet peas as they don't flower very long here before the hot weather gets them. My favourite as I wandered around the garden yesterday was Rosa 'Mme Isaac Pereire' which wafts its delicious scent very generously.
ReplyDeleteOh- honeysuckle is great too! I have some winding through a bush on my street boundary. I always think it must be nice for people walking past, so I hope they notice it!
DeleteI really need a good scented rose - I'll note the name of that one!
I'm enjoying my gardenia at the moment. It is almost too sweet but not quite. I have my daughter on the case to crochet me some rock covers (she is using her new Simply Crochet magazine for the pattern) yours look lovely.
ReplyDeleteNice! Gardenias don't grow in my climate so I'll just have to imagine that one. Oh yes, I know that magazine, I have to talk sternly to myself so I don't buy it every month. Once in a while is ok though. Rock covers are fun, I'm sure you'll love yours!
DeleteThose dark purple sweet peas are beautiful. I rarely bring flowers inside, but we are expecting a freeze tonight, so I brought in a lot of my rose blooms and am really enjoying the scents. You're right - it's so much better when a bouquet smells sweet, too.
ReplyDeleteThe last of the season's roses are extra precious. Especially the scented ones :)
DeleteBeautiful photos :-)
ReplyDeleteI think I love the smell of lilies more than anything else, and different lilies have different scent, my favourite is Lilium regale which I have lots of in my garden. But I have lots of other scented flowers in my garden, soon the Sarcococcas will flower, they are just heavenly, I can smell them from the other side of the garden, fantastic here in mid winter London.
Oh yes - I have the Christmas lily (lilium regale) to look forward to soon! It's not Christmas without the smell of a Christmas lily. Sarcococcas are on my list of things to plant next time I need a shrub!
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