In every season, you’ll find many pretty things to see, hear, and even touch in the garden. But after a long, hard winter, the forgotten sense that comes back to life in spring is the sense of smell.
My nose reminded me as I passed a planter outside a client’s office. Suddenly, I was whisked back to our grandmother’s garden in Wales with the fragrance of stocks (Matthiola)! Wish you could get your nose right into the picture above and share that sensory timewarp. While they’re also called night-scented stocks, their old-fashioned clovey perfume was still transporting at lunchtime.
I don’t have the patience to grow this annual or biennial from seed. But you can, from Canadian suppliers like OSC or among the other scented flowers at Floribunda.
While you’re thinking which to choose, read this and this, which explain the science behind the hows and whys of floral fragrance.
2 comments
LOVE, love, love the smell of stocks. I dried and saved the petals from a bouquet purchased last fall, and there is still delightful scent when I pick up the petals nad breathe in.
I like to plant some Stock in early spring for the scent. This year, though, never got around to planting anything for spring containers.