Migrant Fragrances
Can you imagine a garden with nothing but fragrant plants? It’s a most reasonable proposition, really. You can easily fill a garden with upright and prostrate rosemary and a dozen types of lavender...
Category Archives: Fragrant Gardens
Sweet Violets, Jupiter’s Beard, and Paperwhites
Two weeks ago, I asked if any readers had sweet violets (Viola odorata) in their gardens. Here are some of your responses: “I have some sweet violets growing in my yard and they have been doing quit...
Sweet Violets
Have you ever smelled sweet violets? If you live in Southern California, the chances are slim when considering the probability of engaging in this unique olfactory experience. During almost forty yea...
Lemon Verbena and Lemongrass
If you want to see something new – which, at least where horticulture is concerned, is to learn something new — I urge you to pay a visit to the Sepulveda Garden Center on the corner of Hayvenh...
Heirloom Tea Roses
It’s really a shame that gardeners, like everyone else, have just one life to live. For focusing on bringing more beauty into the world, you would think that gardeners deserve two or three lives at ...
Creating a Fragrant Retreat
When entering the modest building where the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers and Native Plants is headquartered in Sun Valley, your first impression is aromatic. You cannot quite place the s...
Myrtles and their Kin
When it comes to fragrant leaves and exotic barks, no trees can match the myrtles (Myrtaceae). The common myrtle (Myrtus communis) is the appropriate species to start with when introducing the distin...
Intoxicating Scents of Early Spring
THAT SWEET, musky smell wafting in the air after our recent rain was unmistakable: the intoxicating smell of the rockrose. Any day now, flowers of the rockrose will open all across the Valley. The pl...
Jasmines of Early Spring
Throughout the East and the Midwest, the brilliant yellow flowers of Forsythia are the horticultural harbingers of spring. In the Valley, the fluorescent yellow flowers of primrose jasmine (Jasminum ...
Catalina Perfume and other Fragrant Natives
Anyone who does not take a walk after a rain is missing something. Plants not only have a uniquely clean and radiant look, but many exude sweet fragrances that, on a typical day, are difficult if not...
