For gardeners who spend their days away from home, the evening offers a chance to reclaim outdoor space. Night-scented flowers release heady perfumes when the sun goes down, and their cool-toned blooms often glow with a faint luminescence in the dark. This combination allows for a more intimate use of the garden, particularly near seating areas or doorways where the scent drifts indoors.
Stock is a hardy annual that grows quickly from seed. Its wiry stems look a bit scruffy in daylight when the flowers are closed, but pale pink, lilac, and ivory blooms unfurl as the light fades. The plant then glows like tiny stars and emits a strong perfume. Gardeners can sow Matiola longipetala subsp. bicornis directly into raked soil in spring for summer flowers.
Related: Look after your lawn in heatwave
The spicy clove aroma of garden pinks lingers well into the evening. White ‘Memories’ is a compact variety with narrow, grey-green leaves and sparkly white blooms, bred by Whetman Pinks in Devon. It is similar to the classic ‘Mrs Sinkins’ but offers an improvement. Dianthus have a long flowering season from May to October if deadheaded regularly, and they are easy to propagate via cuttings.
Dianthus ‘Memories’ was awarded runner-up in the ‘Plant of the Year’ competition at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2012 and is suitable for patio pots. The clusters of purple and white flowers on tall stems of sweet rocket gently glow at dusk, which is also when their sweet fragrance is at its best. This biennial needs to be sown in the summer, grown on, and planted out in autumn to produce fragrant flowers the following year.
Plant table-top pots with night phlox, a compact, tender perennial native to South Africa. Its deep-pink buds open in early evening to reveal unusual, white, heart-shaped petals and an intense evening perfume. For late-summer scent, plant bulbs of Abyssinian gladiolus, more commonly known as acidanthera, in pots. This tender bulb produces strappy green leaves and slim flower spikes with white petals and burgundy centres from August until October.
Related: Flat Pack Kitchens Perth: Changing the Game of Renovation
A Trachelospermum jasminoides climber is a highly scented evergreen option for milder regions or warm courtyards. Its white, starry flowers release a heady scent strongest in the evening. The twining climber does not self-climb, so it requires wires or trellis for support.
More Plants for Evening Scent
White tobacco plant is a statuesque beauty with tall stems (up to 1.5m) and long, trumpet-shaped flowers held in drooping clusters. It gives off a sweet perfume at dusk and copes well with some shade.
Digitalis purpurea f. albiflora is a classic all-white foxglove that brings drama to the evening, while ‘Pam’s Choice’ offers maroon speckles on its throat. Foxgloves flower in their second year and prefer part shade. ‘Shiro-noda’ wisteria bears racemes up to 60cm in length in June. This white cultivar gives a shimmering appearance at night and has been vegetatively propagated to flower earlier than seed-grown plants.
Related: Bigger hydrangeas with successful propagation and best varieties
White phlox varieties, such as ‘Mount Fuji’ or ‘White Admiral’, resemble bright white clouds at twilight. They have large, domed flowerheads and a soft honey fragrance. Phlox grows in all soils provided they are well-drained. A white petunia used as a companion to blues by day really comes into its own at night when the broad petals capture the moonlight. Plant them en masse in containers, as they appear to glow by night. Keep petunias in containers well-watered for long-lasting displays and deadhead regularly.
Roses are a must-have for scent lovers, but they vary hugely in fragrance. Some are only lightly scented, while others can be sniffed out from yards away. Rose scents range from fruity and zesty to tea, myrrh-like and musky.
