Now is the time to be acquiring seed of fragrant flowers for your summer gardens. Following are some ideas to save money:
1) A source of inexpensive seed is at: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/554064/ Prices range from 49 to 99 cents, and this company is thought to be selling seed from Thompson and Morgan.
2) And then there's trade. Does anyone want to trade for the following flowers? I have 5 trades of each of the following and have marked the fragrant ones with a *. If more than 5 post, post anyway - I just have to make up more packets (can't go above 9 trades) If anyone just wants the seed for SASBE, let me know. Be sure to include self-addressed label and postage.
Cleome (minus *) - pink (well, it's not for nothin' that this flower is also known as the "Skunk Plant" - if you have rabbit/woodchuck/vole/etc. issues, then this plant is so stinky it won't be bothered. I enjoy watching the flowers unfurling at the end of the day and glowing with the twilight, and just refrain from taking a whif when I "stroll" by).
Columbine - seed from Aquilegia 'Black Barlow - should be double in a range from cream to pink to purple.
Cushaw winter squash. Well, hee hee. Obviously, this is not primarily grown for its flowers. But! Might anyone have seed from one of those night-blooming, fragrant, fringed white flowering gourds to trade for this squash? See Lagenaria siceraria below for further description of what I'm looking for.
Horehound (+*) - really don't have more than 5 trades of this one. Has gray, crinkled leaves. When I get around to it, we enjoy a winter tea for coughs made from about 2 cups of leaves boiled in whatever amount of water a recipe for hard candy calls for. Turn off the heat right after it comes to a boil and let sit for about 20 or 30 minutes. Then just follow the recipe. If the results don't harden up, I freeze the ensuing goo in small portions and then add a piece to a cup of boiling water in winter with honey. If you can grow a small patch of herbs or just cluster a few pots near a seat, even though there may not be any flowers, when the sun hits their collective leaves in summer, you will be headed straight for a fragrant paradise.
Lilium 'Black Beauty' x L. 'Casablanca' x L. 'Silver Realm" (0* to hopefully +******) Colors and fragrances from this cross should vary quite a bit. Black Beauty has no fragrance, but the other two are hugely fragrant.
Lunaria (+**) - known as Money Plant for its pods that resemble silver dollars, but I love the way this self-sows in silver-variegated periwinkle at a gate in a yew hedge - fragrant, red-purple flowers about a month before last frost in spring here.
Salvia farinacea (0*) - can't smell a thing on this one, but love the intensity of its blue spikes from summer till frost - also known as Mealy Cup Sage. Should be perennial in zones beneath us (not dependably winter hardy in zone 7 for us).
Sweet William (+***) (Dianthus barbatus) tall, mixed - If anything explicates the romance of a fragrant garden, this has got to be at the top of the list. Nice to follow up with cosmos later on. After collecting seed, this plant makes nice low tufts for front of a patch, behind which the dwarf cosmos 'Sonata' continues flowering till frost.
3) Combining seed orders - dmail me if your interested. Whether or not you trade or combine a seed order with me, following are some fragrant flowers that are inexpensive to start from seed that I don't often see anyone growing:
Asperula orientalis (fragrant flowers) - This one is a low, blue-flowered, fragrant, annual relative of sweet woodruff. I like to sow this sort of thing on the inner edge of our garden paths where it's late summer scruffiness is less obvious. For a similar effect (makes an even better blue haze), ionopsidium would be wonderful, but can't find the seed for it anywhere. ( Hudson 50/2.00) (would be nice oversowing a pot of lilies)
Cestrum nocturnum (Hudson 25/2.50) - If this night jasmine isn't nirvana for the nose, I don't know what is. It came up like lettuce for me (and believe me, I have had my share of germinating failures). After wintering the seedlings over indoors in their first year, they shot up into 5' shrubs the following summer and emitted the most incredible perfume at night. Left tons of them out on the street "Free to Good Home". (another great pot plant - easier to bring in over the winter if grown in a pot)
Cheiranthus 'Fair Lady' (wall flower very fragrant and a hardier genus by this common name is erysimum, which I hope to find somewhere) - Like stock (Matthiola incana), this one needs cool temperatures to flower, so where you have a hot, humid summer, it needs to be started the year before, wintered under some shelter and then flowered in the spring. A greenhouse around here would be splendid, but lacking one of those, would like to find out this year whether a coldframe would work. Will qualify time of year to sow Matthiola below. (I wonder if a pot could be winter-sowed with this one? Some DG gardeners sow even seed of tender plants in pots outdoors any time after the Solstice covered with plastic that is slashed to let in winter rain and snow.) (Hudson 100/2.00 - Sorgina will trade this one with me - perhaps dmail her)
Dianthus (intense clove-like perfume)
Value Seed does have Sweet William, but the other two species they sell are not as fragrant as the following, nor are they as winter-hardy here.
Dianthus alpinus (not at Hudson - maybe Chiltern?) Am not buying this one but mention it because it is so worthwhile in a fragrant garden. On low, silvery mats, the flowers come in many variations and patterns of pink, white and deep rose. Fragrance is unearthly wonderful, and bearded iris were made to grow behind these. It is especially beautiful to grow white bearded iris behind Salvia purpurea, with pinks in the vicinity.
Dianthus gratianopolitanus grandiflorus (cheddar pink) (from Stokes: http://www.stokeseeds.com/cgi-bin/StokesSeeds.storefront 150 / $1.60) This one has a rather sugery pink and not the color and pattern range of D. alpinus; also, it's leaves don't seem as silvery to me. But it does make a low, tight mat with intensely perfumed flowers, as does D. alpinus.
Dianthus plumarius 'Spring Beauty' (from Stokes: http://www.stokeseeds.com/cgi-bin/StokesSeeds.storefront 150 seeds / $1.50) This is a larger, more sprawling plant that really needs a haircut right after flowering to keep its mat more on the decorus side. Silvery leaves and fragrance that travels quite a ways in the garden.
Dianthus superbus (Hudson 500 / 2.50) This one blooms much later than the others, and it's a real flopper at 2' to 3'. But the deeply fringed, long petals with that clove scent, long after the others have finished, is wonderful to have lurking among low herbs like Marrubium incanum with its woolly, silvery leaves which perhaps you have kept nipped back to a presentable mound in front (anyone growing that one?). I grow the other horehound, Marrubium vulgare for its leaves elsewhere where looks are not so important.
Hysoppus officinalis - blue summer flowers. I hope to clip this one as I do rue (some people get a rash from this one) around the outer edging. Presentable edgings do so much for flowers with rattier spells behind. (Hudson 1,000/2.00)
Lagenaria siceraria - Hortus III says that this species includes "...many sizes and shapes [known as] Dipper, Sugar-Trough, Hercules' Club, Bottle, Knob-Kerrie and Trumpet gourds." Our yew hedge is none the worse for a summer 2 years ago when it was engulfed by L. s. 'Cucuzzi Caravazzi' which floated its unearthly fringed white flowers above the hedge at twilight - gave all my seed away swearing I'd never do it again, but am going to ask neighbor if he'd mind. Fragrant. (Hudson 10 / 2.50 for L. sicer. varieties) Pinetree had better price years ago, but not sure they still sell this.
Malcolmia (Virginia Stock) (Hudson 1,000 seeds / $1.25) (fragrant flowers) See Matthiola bicornis below.
Matthiola (intensely fragrant)
a) Matthiola incana - (Value Seeds - see link above) Regarding my comments on Matthiola above under Cheiranthus, Hortus III says, "The intermediate stock [which may be hardier than the 10-week stock]...[may be sown] the spring or summer before and the plants carried over winter in a cool house or frame [to bloom the following spring]." This stock will close up shop when hot, humid weather hits. When we have bought a plant in the spring locally, it has flowered out doors without protection in the 4 weeks before last frost for us.
b) Matthiola bicornis - (Value Seeds - see link above) This one is a gentler, but heavenly perfume at night in summer in spite of heat and humidity. We sow directly where it grows. We like to mix up this seed with Malcolmia (see above), which being shorter, gives a fuller effect in a pot when sown with this particular stock, and also perfumes garden in daytime before this stock perfumes the night.
Mirabilis (fragrant) - have M. jalapa seed from MollyMc and already splitting 10 seed packet of M. longiflora with Berrygirl. This is to alert anyone who hasn't thought of 4 o'clocks yet.
Value Seed has a great price on Mirabilis jalapa 'Broken Colors'
Hudson has M. longiflora and M. multiflora.
Ocimum (basil) (Value Seeds - see link above) Hudson says seed viability can be up to 10 years. (a classical pot plant)
Papaver (Value Seeds - see link above) These aren't known for their fragrance, but have a style that suits herb gardens, as many of the flowers listed here do.
Primula - Hudson has a few species and hybrids, and I think their seed in this category often compares in cost favorably to other companies. However, you know what? If you buy a plant, then you definitely get a plant plus lots of seed. So, I am going to splurge on a plant of Primula sieboldii at http://www.siskiyourareplantnursery.com/ and a plant of Primula kisoana at: http://www.evermaynursery.com/store/index2.asp?alphalist=P&search=&ID=All&offset=50 and not buy primrose seed this year.
Reseda (mignonette) If ever there were a plant designed for pot culture, this is it. In Wilson and Bell's The Fragrant Year, in her wonderful prose style, Helen Wilson says, "Shaggy little mignonette, that humble Egyptian weed whose perfume won the hearts of Frenchmen in the reign of Louis XV, still survives to enchant us." Hopefully this book is obtainable as used/second hand via Barnes and Noble or Amazon? or reprinted by Godine??? (Hudson 500 / 2.00)
Viola odorata 'Queen Charlotte' Hudson 50/2.00
V. o. "original wildform" Hudson 50/2.00
Did you know that Wilson and Bell say one of the cultivars of V. odorata makes a good ground cover ("...intensely fragrant 'El Duende'" - don't compost all your periwinkle yet)? and which ones bloom continuously (V. odorata semperflorens in "cool, moist summers" and various cultivars) and which ones bloom only in spring (V. o. 'Palustris' - not the species V. palustris)? and which ones are more tender to frost (best to read the book)?
I hope you get that book. Also, Mirabel Osler's In the Eye of the Garden complements Wilson and Bell very nicely. Osler also wrote A Gentle Plea for Chaos, also eminently readable.
May we all walk a fragrant path - when we're away from the barnyard.
edited to correct seed prices on Cheiranthus and Ocimum
edited to include Value Seed where it's prices beat Hudson's. May I say that in the making of a garden, money is a huge obstacle to dreams for many of us. However, having said that, I think that supporting a small, unincorporated business that is a labor of love for its owner has a lot of merit when we are able to do that.
Thank you to everyone that keeps me straight - appreciate all feedback. Sorgina, I'll wait to hear from you - will trade the lily seed for wallflower seed.
This message was edited Jan 8, 2006 1:06 PM
This message was edited Jan 8, 2006 8:27 PM
Frugal Fragrant Floraculture - loooooong post
Karen, this is so exciting - I had no idea there was a fragrant flower forum! Whoopee!!
I'd be happy to share packets of night jasmine, cheddar pink, mignonette and the 3 stocks you mention. Not sure how we would do the payment though. Any ideas? I think Value Seeds has some of those varieties - my problem is I can't order from them because they only sell to the US.
I have just bought a packet of viola odorata seeds that I would be happy to share with you. I also have lots of wallflower seeds that I collected from my own plants this summer. (Gold, cream, yellow and russet tones). Maybe I could swap for some of your lily seeds?
I'll get back to you tomorrow as it's late here and I need to go to bed.
I'm sure I've got more fragrant seeds, but need to look through my hoard tomorrow.
As I write this I am inhaling the perfume of half a dozen forced hyacinth flowers which are filling the conservatory with their perfume...I treated myself to them for Christmas. Thankyou so much to all the DG members who campaigned for this forum - it's a great idea.
Maggi xxxx