Opening on May 30, 2023, at the Palace of Versailles, will be a new “Perfumer’s Garden”, sponsored by the high-end perfume house Maison Francis Kurkdjian. One of my favorite fragrance blogs, “Now Smell This”, shared this video:
I can’t wait to go see it! Maybe next summer, when we are planning a family trip to France.
Noted gardener and garden writer Ken Druse has published a delightful piece in The New York Times this week on incorporating scent and fragrance into one’s garden. It follows the publication of his latest book, ““The Scentual Garden: Exploring the World of Botanical Fragrance,” which won the top honor of the American Horticultural Society for writing, in March. He calls the scent dimension of horticulture the “invisible garden” — not seen, but sensed as a key element of any garden’s appeal and design.
My garden holds many of the plants he mentions; right now, the most fragrant ones in bloom are the roses and gardenias. I also grow rosemary, mint, and basil — all very aromatic, and useful in the kitchen.
I have so many gardening books that I haven’t bought a new one in years, but I may have to make an exception for this one, given how much I love both gardening and fragrance!
Have you read it? Plan to read it? What are your favorite fragrant flowers, and which do you grow at home?
More from my garden.
Doesn’t this look and sound delicious? It is a fragrant salad devised by perfumer Ezra Woods, whose brand is “Regime des Fleurs.” The recipe is in this article from the NY Times’ “T” Magazine: A Perfumer’s Fragrant Flower Salad.
Some early blossoms of David Austin roses from my garden, rescued from a torrential rainstorm. English Roses are so fragrant!
The first lily of the valley blooms have emerged in my garden, in the last days of March. I love lilies of the valley but they can be hard to grow here in Zone 7, so I’m delighted that these have decided to return. They emit one of my favorite fragrances, the inimitable “muguet“. Do you grow lilies of the valley? When do they emerge in your garden?
For me, spring spells time to cut back on burning scented candles and incense and to ramp up the fresh flowers. I can snip a few roses here and whack down some lilacs there with the best of them, but I wanted an expert’s opinion on how to assemble a bouquet that would please a…
via How to Make a Fragrant Bouquet — Now Smell This
Lovely post from Angela at Now Smell This, combining two of my loves: fragrance and flowers.
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
Old Herbaceous 