CHEAP FLOWER PETALS

The Fragrant Garden: Growing and Using Scented Plants

For those with an interest in aromatherapy, culinary herbs, or gardening, The Fragrant Garden will be an endless source of pleasure and information. Enchantingly illustrated with 140 color photos by leading garden photographer Clay Perry.
How many people yearn for a garden that not only looks beautiful and meets their practical needs, but also provides a sanctuary in which to escape from the pressures of everyday life? In this exquisitely illustrated volume, Julia Lawless reveals the fragrant garden to be a unique source of health, well-being, and pleasure and guides you through every phase of creating your own aromatic paradise. Accessible advice and a directory of more than 50 essential fragrant plants help you to achieve your ideal, whether it’s a tiny aromatic border, a hanging basket, or a formal rose garden. The Fragrant Garden is complete with a generous selection of recipes and projects that show you how to use your garden’s bounty to enhance your home, health, beauty, and cooking.

My favorite of the Gardenias I'm growing, although not fond of the name of this miniature variety. Sure it is great marketing for gardeners in northern climes. Small scale and low growing to about 14" with narrow pointy leaves. Has been in continuous bloom since May providing a constant display of fragrant flowers. Foliage evergreen with very few yellow leaves produced. Have a couple of these potted on my patio in a mix of homemade compost, Danish peat moss and long fiber.

The first flowering of Pink jasmine in my neighborhood. This fragrant flowering vine blooms mid winter through spring in Southern California. Seen here twining downward on a fence. The fragrance is not as pure or pleasant as that of other jasmines and can be overwhelming when blooming abundantly. Hardy to USDA zone 9a.

It is a great irony that garden books are filled with sunny, colorful photos taken at midday, while the gardeners who tend them are usually away at work. Peter Loewer's The Evening Garden is an exciting revelation of the delights to be found in a garden that is planned and planted for evening enjoyment, from night-bloomers to fragrant orchids and wildflowers.

This book runs the gamut from technical considerations, like how the eye sees color at night, to essential discussions of plants with night-time value, whether it be fragrance, bloom, or the ability to attract moths. There are chapters dedicated to night-blooming daylilies, evening primroses and other nocturnal wildflowers, water gardens of the evening, moonlight gardens, and fireflies and glowworms. All are made eminently readable with quotes from past botanical writings, and the elegant text is graced with 160 beautiful line drawings.

This is an indispensable book for any gardener who plans to venture out to the garden after sundown - or who just likes to read about it.