The Best Fragrant Flowers for Your Garden

By BH&G Garden Editors
Updated March 20, 2019
Plant a few of these aromatic gems around your yard and add a whole new level of enjoyment. We added our top picks and our friends at Bailey Nursery gave us some of their favorites, too!
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Dianthus

Peter Krumhardt

This family of old-fashioned favorites is grown for their pink, white, or red, spicy fragrant flowers and their often-evergreen clumps or mats of gray-blue, grassy leaves. Taller types are excellent for cutting. Dianthus includes both annual and perennial types with the perennial types suited to Zones 3-9.

Name: Dianthus selections

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Gardenia

Among the most famous fragrances in the garden world, gardenias bear a heavy scent and lovely white flowers. Happily, this shrub can be grown indoors or out.

Name: Gardenia selections

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Video: Create a Fragrant Garden

Watch this quick video for tips on filling your landscape with wonderfully fragrant flowers.

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Nicotiana

Look for old-fashioned varieties of nicotiana to fill your garden with a strong, sweet fragrance. Plant it near your patio or bedroom window as the scent is most pronounced at night.

Name: Nicotiana selections

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Sweet Autumn Clematis

Want to make a big statement at the end of the season? Try sweet autumn clematis. This large vine (it can climb to more than 25 feet once established) literally covers itself in masses of starry white, fragrant flowers. You can smell it from across the yard on warm, sunny days.

Name: Clematis ternifolia

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Oriental Lily

Powerfully fragrant and stunningly gorgeous, Oriental lilies such as the famous 'Star Gazer' can perfume an entire garden. Oriental lilies bloom in mid- to late summer in shades of white, pink, and yellow. They're wonderful cut flowers, too.

Name: Lilium selections

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Garden Phlox

Phlox is one of summer's showstopping flowers. It bears big clusters of candy-colored blooms on 4-foot-tall stems from mid- to late summer. These blooms bear a sweet fragrance that's most apparent on warm, sunny days.

Name: Phlox paniculata

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Rose

The rose has earned its place as America's favorite flower. It's no wonder why: The blooms are beautiful, perfect for cutting, and many are wonderfully fragrant. The flowers come in a wide range of colors, from dark reddish black to pure white.

Name: Rosa selections

Test Garden Tip: Do a sniff test on roses before you buy them. Some are powerfully fragrant and others bear no scent at all. Plus, their fragrance varies as much as their color—some smell citrusy, others smell floral, musky, or like fruit.

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Sweet Pea

Prized for their intensely fragrant flowers, most sweet peas are 4- to 6-foot-tall vines. Their flowers appear in nearly every shade, plus stunning bicolors.

Name: Lathyrus selections

Test Garden Tip: Like roses, some varieties aren't fragrant at all. So if you want a scented selection, make sure you read the description on the plant tag or seed catalog.

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Lily-of-the-Valley

Don't let this little beauty fool you—though it's small, lily-of-the-valley packs a big fragrance in its nodding white or pink bell-shaped flowers. It's a tough, low-care groundcover you can practically plant and forget in shady spots.

Name: Convallaria selections

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Hyacinth

For early spring perfume in the garden, nothing beats hyacinths. Plant them in fall in well-drained soil to enjoy their powerful scent the following spring. Flower colors range from purple to pink, red, white, and yellow.

Name: Hyacinthus selections

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Iris

Bearded irises grace spring garden with color and perfume. Available in almost every color of the rainbow, irises also have a range of fragrances, from anise to floral to fruity.

Name: Iris selections

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Lilac

Lilacs are among the most recognizable spring flowering shrubs. If you miss their large cone-shaped flower trusses, you can't avoid their intense fragrance. Lilacs are durable and able to put up with almost any growing conditions except shade.

Name: Syringa selections

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Flowering Crabapple

Denny Schrock

Crabapples are small to mid-size trees that range in habit from low mounds to upright, column-shape, or weeping specimens. In spring, they are covered with fragrant white, pink, or red flowers, and in fall with small yellow, orange, or red apples that attract birds.

Name: Malus selections

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Heliotrope

Gather some friends around heliotrope in bloom and ask what it smells like. Some say cherry pie, others say vanilla, and yet others say grapes. No matter what you think it smells like, you're sure to love the sweet, rich fragrance that emanates from the lovely clusters of purple, blue, or white flowers.

Name: Heliotropium arborescens selections

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Lavender

Transport your nose to Provence by growing lavender in your garden. The flowers and foliage of this herb produce aromatic perfumes that permeate the countryside of southern France in mid-summer. In your own garden, grow it in well-drained soil in full sun. If you plant it next to a walkway, you'll catch a whiff every time you pass by.

Name: Lavandula selections

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Sweet Alyssum

Known for its carpet of lightly fragrant flowers in white, rose, lavender, or purple, sweet alyssum is an easy-to-grow, low-maintenance cool-season annual. Rarely growing more than 6 inches tall and 1 foot wide, sweet alyssum is a good addition to edgings, beds, rock gardens, hanging baskets, and window boxes.

Name: Lobularia selections

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Peony

Andreas Trauttmansdorff

This old-fashioned, fuss-free plant can thrive for years with no special care at all. The petal-packed blooms are perfect cut flowers—but not all are fragrant. Give the blooms a scent check or read up on a peony variety before you buy.

Name: Paeonia selections

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Moonflower

Like nicotiana, this annual is perfect for evening gardens as the big, pure white trumpet-shaped flowers are most fragrant as the sun goes down. Moonflower is gorgeous and easy to grow as it thrives in hot, sunny weather.

Name: Datura selections

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Southern Magnolia

This Southern tree is widely planted for its beautifully fragrant, creamy-to-white spring flowers; large, shiny, evergreen leaves with a fuzzy underside; and red fruit in fall. Magnolia is a large tree, reaching 60 to 80 feet tall and 30 to 50 feet wide. Smaller cultivars are available.

Name: Magnolia grandiflora

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Mock Orange

A favorite of our friends at Bailey Nursery, these deciduous shrubs add tons of sweet fragrance to the garden, along with their gorgeous white blossoms with yellow centers. Their strong scent keeps deer away and their height adds privacy to any yard. Plant mock orange in an area that gets full- to part-sun.

Name: Philadelphus selections

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Florida Anise Tree

These evergreen shrubs can be seen in Southern landscapes and have glossy, dark leaves. Unlike most other fragrant plants, the scent actually comes from the foliage. The compact shape of Florida anise tree makes it a good hedge plant.

Name: Illicium floridanum

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Viburnum

If you want sweet-smelling flowers in your garden and colorful berries in the fall, look to viburnum shrubs. The flowers can be pale pink or white, and berries come in shades of blue, red, and even black. The berries will attract birds to your garden.

Name: Viburnum selections

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Lilac Tree

To get the same perfume in the garden as shrub lilacs but with a little more height, plant a lilac tree. You can find varieties with cluster flowers in shades of pink, purple, and white. Lilacs are also pretty drought-tolerant once established.

Name: Syringa selections

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Daffodil

Nothing smells like spring more than a garden full of daffodils. The yellow, orange, and white cup-shape blooms add texture and color to the landscape. If you want to start your fragrant garden early, force the bulbs indoors.

Name: Narcissus selections

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Azalea

Colorful blooms and glossy leaves make azalea bushes stand out. If you have a shady place that needs some color, these shrubs can fill the gap. Soil is really important for azaleas—they prefer acidic soil and are happiest in organically rich soil.

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