Here’s a sweet-smelling scenario for you. Imagine walking into your beautifully furnished LouvreTec outdoor room on a perfectly still and sunny winter’s day, opening your external louvre shutters, and breathing in the heavenly scent of your garden. The natural perfume wafts through the open shutters, and into your outdoor room. It makes that special place an even nicer place to be.
It’s actually very simple to make that scenario a reality. Many of our customers have already done the same thing, by planting a scented garden right next to their outdoor area. Some have even brought raised garden beds into their outdoor room and planted highly perfumed flowers and shrubs in them. What are they planting, you ask? Here are some of the more popular ones:
Daphne: often called the Queen of winter perfumes because its scent is at its most divine in the cooler months. It can be a difficult plant to grow as it needs excellent drainage and shelter from the strong sun so you might want to put it in a pot and bring it into your outdoor room where it will enjoy the shade
Port Wine Magnolia: a beautiful plant that flowers in late spring and produces a distinctive fragrance that has been called a combination of vanilla ice cream and mashed banana. This magnolia can be trimmed into an evergreen hedge, so it lends itself to being used as a screening plant for privacy around your outdoor entertainment space.
Rosemary: very fragrant but in a different way to some of the more sweetly-perfumed plants on our list. Plant your rosemary in a sunny spot with excellent drainage, and trim after flowering to bring on new growth. An annual application of lime is a good idea.
Lavender: as you might already know, lavender is related to rosemary and enjoys being grown in similar conditions. English Lavender is famous for its unmistakable perfume, but the French and Italian varieties might be a better choice as they will bloom in spring, summer and autumn if you remove dead blooms on a regular basis.
Gardenias: they range in size from ground covers to large shrubs, and can be grown in tubs in your outdoor room, or in slightly acidic soil in the garden. Protect them from frosts and exposure to strong sunshine for long periods of time, and they’ll reward you with highly perfumed blooms.
Lilac: able to be grown as a large shrub or as a deciduous small tree, with a very sensual and seductive scent to boot. The white, pink, purple and deep rose blooms show their beauty in spring but lilac is better suited to Australia’s colder regions including Victoria, Tasmania, the highlands, mountains, and tablelands.
Jasmine: no scented garden is complete without jasmine. No matter which type you choose, you’ll love the scent. Jasmine plants are climbers and need a trellis or fence to support them. They flower in spring and benefit from regular pruning; this promotes even more flower growth on this prolific plant, and even more perfume as a result.
Imagine those delightful scents in your LouvreTec outdoor room! It’s easy to do, so the next time you buy plants at the garden centre, shop with your nose as well as your eyes.