Recently I have been blogging about fragrance on my other blog, Serenity Now. My most recent “Fragrance Friday” was about ginger lilies, so for today’s snippet, I thought I would share a passage from a favorite small gardening book: Fragrant Flowers of the South, by Eve Miranda. In addition to the helpful information it contains for gardeners in Zones 7-11, it is illustrated not only with photographs but also some lovely watercolors of individual flowers.

The fragrance of the South is as much a part of its heritage as the stately antebellum homes and the mystic legends of the bayou. It’s the wild azaleas sweetening the swamps and hammocks; it’s the Cherokee rose entwining itself along an ancient, weather-worn, split-rail fence; it’s the cool evergreen majestic magnolias, dusting the air with heady perfume from their pristine white flowers. The special fragrances of Southern gardens are gifts that we Southerners share with the rest of the world, filling their memories of their visits to the South with the fragrant treasures we so often take for granted.

Of course when we decide to fill our homes and gardens with fragrant plants, we know that their perfume never totally belongs to the one who plants and tends them. For plants know no private bower, no property lines, but share their wealth from room to room, indoors; and outdoors, their odor jumps over hedges and walled fences, glides down sidewalks and slips into another’s window.

Photo: roadtrippers.com