Create a Scent Garden

Aromatic garden plants is the best benefit of an herb garden.  And you can grow an herb garden just for this purpose, never planning to harvest anything, but rather to sit and enjoy the glorious smells.

Karen Creel of GardenChick.com, gave a great list of aroatic plants in an article in The Essential Herbal Magazine.  That article got me thinking about a theme garden based on this idea.  Rather than worrying about what to do with this or that plant, just grow a garden that asks you to rest, take a seat with a good book, and enjoy the fragrance.

alternative garden - scented container with oregano, lavender, catmint, aromatic mint, geranium (in the back), rosemary, mini petunia 

What is Needed

You always need six hours of direct sunlight for an herbs garden, as well as well-drained soil that you amend with rich compost to give the herbs what they need to get lush and fragrant.  Always choose plants for your hardiness zone.  A smaller number can do well, but larger number zones will struggle in cooler weather or harsh winters.  Always plant taller varieties in the back and give the plants proper space to get larger over time.  Place the invasive plants, like lemon balm, mints or woodruff in a container to stop the spread.

Design Ideas

The Border

Create a deep border (8–12 ft deep) along a fence, path, or lawn edge.

Back Layer (Tall Structure)

• Climbing rose
• 
  Lilac
• Bee Balm
• Pineapple sage
• Lemon verbena

Middle Layer (Color + Fragrance)

• Lavender
• Calendula
• Scented geraniums
  
• Lemon balm
• Chamomile
• Catmint

Front Edge (Touch & Scent Zone)

• Corsican mint
• Sweet woodruff
• Lemon thyme
• Chocolate mint
• Spearmint (contained!)
  

The Circle Garden

Divide garden into four beds around a center feature (bench, sundial, birdbath).

Center Feature

• Rosemary shrub or lavender mound

Bed 1 — Mediterranean Herbs

• Rosemary
• Lavender
• Lemon thyme
• Curry leaf (container if needed)

Bed 2 — Tea & Lemon Garden

• Lemon balm
• Lemon verbena
• Chamomile
• Sweet cicely

Bed 3 — Mint Collection

• Chocolate mint
• Spearmint
• Corsican mint
  (sink pots to control spread)

Bed 4 — Flowering Pollinator Herbs

• Bee balm
• Calendula
• Catmint
• Pineapple sage
  

The Wandering Path

Create a curving walking path with herbs brushed as people pass.

Along Path Edges

• Corsican mint
• Sweet woodruff
• Lemon thyme

Waist Height

• Scented geraniums
• Lavender
• Catmint
• Chamomile

Fragrance Stations

• Chocolate mint corner
• Lemon garden (lemon balm + verbena)
• Pineapple sage surprise scent

Vertical Moments

• Climbing rose archway
• Lilac anchor shrub

Plant List

Here is a list of fragrant herbs to include in your plans:

• Bee Balm
• Cinnamon basil
• Calendula
• Chamomile
• Chocolate Mint
• Catmint
• Corsican mint
• Curry leaf
• Lavender
• Lemon balm
• Lemon thyme
• Lemon Verbena
• Lemon Balm
• Lilac
• Patchouli
• Pineapple sage
• Rose, climbing
• Rosemary
• Scented geraniums
• Spearmint
• Sweet Cicely 
• Sweet woodruff

Book Review - Encyclopedia of Herbs

The Encyclopedia of Herbs: A Comprehensive Reference to Herbs of Flavor and Fragrance

By Arthur O. Tucker, PhD and Thomas DeBaggio (published by Timber Press, 2009)

I have always wanted the definitive book on herbs, which is really an impossibility, but this book is probably the closest I've found.  Written by a botanist, Arthur O. Tucker and an herb specialist Thomas DeBaggio it is  a "meticulously researched compendium provides every aspect of growing, identifying, harvesting, preserving, and using more than 500 species of herbs."

It begins with sections on plant identification and naming then progresses through understanding an identifying the flavors and tastes to maximizing flavor and fragrance of herbs into how to grow them and keep them healthy.  Then it provides a profile of 500 different plants.  Providing a plant's botanical name and family, (as well as common names in various countries where it is grown,) whether it is an annual or perennial, its height, hardiness, light requirements, water consumption, required soil type, and pH. The often fascinating history of the plant, the chemistry of its essential oils, and its culinary, landscape, and craft uses are also included, as is advice on how to propagate.  The practical parts of the text, like how to propagate and tidbits of history were the brain child of Thomas DeBaggio.  This is actually a revised version of their first publication The Big Book of Herbs.  The authors received The Gertrude B. Foster Award for Excellence in Herbal Literature from the Herb Society of America. With this version they have added new plants and updated the nomenclature.  It does have an index which is invaluable with a book of this magnitude.  They also went to the trouble of providing plant name pronunciation guides including a way to know what the letters should sound like.  I thought that was a great touch, so we can say them right in the company of our herb peers and not feel silly.  The book also references GRAS (Generally Regarded as Safe) characteristics for the various plants profiled.

It has line drawings of herbs rather than photographs which I think was helpful and not so helpful depending on how you wish to use the book.  For plant identification it is not as helpful without a few color photos, but the other information it provides, more than makes up for this.  There are 145 line drawings included in the 604 pages of text.  The index includes topics as well as Scientific names and common names to make searching for herbs easier.

About the Authors

Joyce and Thomas DeBaggio taken by Melissa Block/NPR

I have to admit that I am biased toward Thomas DeBaggio, he was a self-taught herb grower who I got to know through his writing for the Herb Companion magazine back when I first got interested in herbs in the late 1980s. He was the founder of DeBaggio's Herb Farm and Nursery, now located in Chantilly, Virginia, and run by his son, Francesco.  He unfortunately died in 2011 after a long fight with Alzheimer's Disease.  One of my friends in herbs once said, Tom had forgotten more about herbs than he would ever learn in his lifetime.  Mellisa Block of NPR, had this to say in her obituary of this remarkable man:

"DeBaggio lived for plants and the garden. He started out selling tomato plants in Styrofoam cups from his driveway in Arlington, Va., for 25 cents apiece. That backyard business grew into a thriving herb farm and nursery with 100 varieties of tomato plants, three dozen kinds of basil — everything leafy and beautifully strong and fragrant.

"When DeBaggio was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, he set to work, writing two books about living with the disease. He described with remarkable candor the frightening progression of his illness.
"This is an unfinished story of a man dying in slow motion," he wrote in the first book, which he titled, with his typical brutal honesty, Losing My Mind."

Dr. Arthur O. Tucker is a professor of botany at Delaware State University. He is a botanist specializing in the identification and chemistry of plants of flavor, fragrance, and medicine. He teaches and writes and is a Research Professor and Director of the Claude E. Phillips Herbarium.  He has published widely on many herbs and essential oils, is an acknowledged authority of the lavenders, and is on the editorial board of Economic Botany and Journal of Essential Oil Research as well as an advisor for many other journals and groups. 

If you want to get your self a copy of this wonderful hardcover book, check out this link to DeBaggio's Herb Famr and Nursery:  http://www.debaggioherbs.com/books.html

Happy Spring! Let's talk Fragrance

This morning my favorite weather man Paul Conrad was on Michigan Avenue celebrating the first day of Spring.  He was wearing a lamb suit and later he wore a couple others.  It was an amusing way to start a Monday!  He also mentioned that it was National Fragrance Day. 

Fragrance perfume

Over the weekend, I discovered this great recipe for making your own Rose perfume, so to celebrate Spring here is a rose fragrance recipe to try:

Rose Petal Perfume

3 oz. vodka

1 Tbls. Rosewater

1 cup scented rose petals

2 vanilla pods

10 drops oil of roses

10 drops petrigrain oil

5 drops ylang-ylang

Directions:

Measure out the vodka and the scented rose petals or pull the petals off the rose heads if the are whole flower heads.

Lightly crush the vanilla pods amend steep them with the rose petals in the vodka.  Cover and leave for a week

Strain the vodka and add the rosewater.  Stir very well.

Add the drops of essential oil stirring constantly.  Bottle and leave to mature for four weeks.  Strain again through filter paper and finally bottle for use.

Fragrance Gardens

My love of herbs is only enhanced by their magical scents.  I love to touch and shape and even rub the leaves between my fingers to release the smells into the air.  As a result I have planted scented geraniums in terra cotta pots and placed them near the entrance to my home.  You would brush them as you entered releasing the scent and bringing it into the house with you.  Keeping in mind my penchant for theme gardens, I pulled together this list of plants for a fragrance container you can put on your patio for scent and beauty. 

• Annuals and Tender Perennials
• Sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima)
• Sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus)



Pineapple Sage

• Pineapple sage (Salvia elegans)
• Scented geraniums (Pelegoniums)
• Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)

·         Perennials

• Lemon or Lavender Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)
• Violet (Viola odorata)
• Chocolate cosmos (Cosmos atrosanguineus).

·         Scented varieties of both

o    lemon verbena

o    rose-scented geranium,

o    English lavender (L. angustifolia)

o    French lavender (L. dentata),

o     peppermint (Mentha piperita)

o    basil (Ocimum basilicum)

o    Sage (Salvia officinalis)

o    fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)

o    chamomile

References:

Fragrance in Bloom the Scented Garden throughout the Year by Anne Lovejoy

The Little Book of Scented Geraniums by Adelma Simmons

The Aromatherapy Garden by Julia Lawless