10 Best Smelling Flowers for Your Yard

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Planting flowers is a great way to improve the look of your yard and enhance your home’s curb appeal. But there are so many more amazing benefits to a beautiful flower garden than simple visual appeal.

To make the most of all the hard work you put into planting a garden in your yard, it’s best to look for flowers that offer other benefits than sheer beauty.

This planting season, take your gardening up a notch by including a variety of aromatic plants in your garden.

These 10 plant varieties are the best smelling flowers for your yard.

Gardenia

Best known for their strong, sweet fragrance, gardenias are a great option for adding scent to your yard this summer.

Their evergreen bushes can add structure to your garden throughout the year, and their waxy white flowers draw the eye when they’re in bloom.

Depending on your gardening zone, varieties of gardenia bloom in the spring, summer, or fall, giving you the option to add a wonderful fragrance to your garden throughout the year.

Gardenias are a perennial shrub that grow best in zones 8, 9, and 10 because they thrive on a humid climate.

They’re also great for growing indoors in humid rooms like the bathroom. And plant varieties can grow up to eight feet tall, making them great for adding privacy to your yard.

Lilac

Next to gardenia, the fragrant scent of the lilac bush is one of the most recognizable garden smells during the growing season.

Lilacs are known for their large cone-shapes blooms and heart shaped leaves.

They come in an array of varieties, from tiny dwarf shrubs to large trees.

These hardy shrubs grow best in part to full sun and provide both spring and summer blooms, in addition to colorful fall foliage.

The lilac plant is drought tolerant and low maintenance. And some larger varieties grow so big, they’re great for providing a little privacy in your garden along with their wonderful scent. You can pick up a lilac bush here.

Hyacinth

For amazing garden scents in early spring, plant a few hyacinths in your yard.

Hyacinths bloom with a central flower spike in purple, pink, red, white, and yellow from the middle of an array of succulent leaves.

To have beautiful blooming hyacinth in your yard next spring, be sure to plant your bulbs in early fall this year.

These perennial bulbs grow well in part to full sun and are deer resistant.

They’re a fairly low-maintenance plant that can even be grown indoors with the right growing conditions.

Phlox

The big, colorful cluster of flowers on the phlox plant are always a show-stopper during the summer months. But in addition to the amazing blooms on this popular plant, phlox also has an amazing sweet fragrance that will flow throughout your yard as it blossoms.

The lovely fragrance is most apparent on warm, sunny days, so you’re sure to enjoy the sweet smell throughout the hot days of summer.

Phlox is a low-maintenance perennial that grows well in part or full sun.

Varieties can grow up to eight feet tall and spread to more than three feet wide, while other smaller versions, like creeping phlox, are typically used as groundcover.

Blooms usually appear in the spring and summer and their lovely fragrance is wonderful for attracting birds to your yard.

Clematis

For an end-of-season pop of fragrance, plant clematis in your yard.

This showy vine produces a flurry of blooms at the end of the growing season (late spring to early fall depending on the type and variety).

The wonderful fragrance produced by the clematis blooms is matched by their amazing color, which comes in blue, purple, red, white, pink, and yellow.

Clematis thrives in part to full sun and their vines can grow up to 20 feet long. It grows in a variety of gardening zones, making it a great overall choice for backyard gardens.

This low-maintenance flower is wonderful for attracting birds and can be grown in containers just as easily as in the ground.

Dianthus

The dianthus plant is a garden favorite. It’s grass-like blue-green foliage is great for ground cover, but the real show stopper on this flowering plant is its multitude of starry flowers.

The buds of the dianthus come in a variety of colors, ranging from pink to blue. And each bloom is filled with a spicy fragrance that will surely liven up your flower garden.

Dianthus varieties range from small creeping groundcover to large cut flowers, making them a great option for a variety of gardens.

This perennial flower grows best in part to full sun and typically blooms in the spring and summer. It’s a hardy plant that is drought tolerant and deer resistant. It also works well as erosion control in sloped gardens.

Lily of the Valley

While a variety of fragrant flowers thrive in full sun, there are a few types that do well in shady spots.

If you’re searching for a plant that grows well in shade and also has a great scent, look no further than lily of the valley.

The bright green leaves of lily of the valley provide wonderful groundcover and the tiny white or pale pink flowers create a wonderful fragrance.

Since lily of the valley is prone to spreading, this fragrant shade-lover is best grown as edging on sidewalks or driveways.

It also works well as erosion control on sloped areas of your yard. Lily of the valley grows in a variety of gardening zones and is a low-maintenance option for your backyard garden.

Rose

The rose may be one of the most popular garden flowers, and for good reason.

On top of their beautiful blooms, which are great for cutting and displaying in your home, many rose varieties are also very fragrant.

But just as roses come in a variety of colors, these flowers also come in a variety of scents.

To find a smell that you enjoy, be sure to do a sniff test before planting.

While some rose varieties come with a powerful scent, others come with no fragrance at all!

Roses range from groundcover varieties with small blooms to climbing plants with large flowers.

With so many types and varieties of roses available for your garden, growing conditions and plant styles vary considerably.

Peony

If you’re searching for a low-maintenance plant with show-stopping blooms and amazing fragrance, look no further than the peony.

The petal-packed blossoms on the peony plant are great for adding a pop of color to your garden and they’re perfect as cut flowers for adding a fresh floral fragrance to your home. And after the colorful blooms have faded, the peony plant’s lush green leaves will provide structure to your garden throughout the rest of the growing season.

These tough perennials can grow in a variety of conditions and withstand a range of weather, making them a great option for gardens who don’t want a lot of maintenance.

Most varieties grow well in part to full sun and produce a small bush with spring blooms.

Viburnum

For sweet garden smells in the spring and summer and colorful berries in the fall, plant viburnum in your backyard garden.

These shrubs feature pale pink or white flowers during the warm months that transform into berries in shades of blue, red and black during the fall.

These drought tolerant shrubs come in a variety of sizes and can be grown in several different gardening zones.

They’re low-maintenance plants that attract birds to their fragrant flowers in the spring and summer and berries throughout the fall months.

I hope you found some great smelling flowers to add to your yard.  I’d love to know your favorite, let me know yours in the comments below.