Fragrant Leaves

• Lavender. (More on lavender in the Flower section, but the leaves are plenty fragrant on their own.)
• Scented geraniums (Pelargonium): Some varieties to try are some of the rose-scenteds (some are better than others), the peppermint, the lemon, and lime. Very rich, very fragrant. The "peppermint" is not quite the same as real peppermint, but is every bit its equal for energizing lift -- and even better, doesn't smell quite like toothpaste. Scented geranium leaves are used in cooking, and you can add leaves to tea - just beware the cooked leaves look really depressingly limp and dead.
• Peppermint and spearmint. Unfortunately these bring to mind toothpaste these days, but the scent is still brisk and refreshing. And of course you can eat them, put them in drinks... even make toothpaste oil from them.....
• Other herbs: oregano, sage, basil, and other mint-family herbs; there's also fragrant leaves such as dill and cilantro. Even tomato leaves have a distinctive, sharp smell (though I wouldn't eat them!).
• Shiso/Beefsteak plant/perilla. Word of advice: get your seed or leaves directly from a Japanese source or store if you can. I've gotten so-called purple shiso that didn't have the nice, spicy perilla smell. The Japanese use these distinctly sweet-sour herbal-smelling leaves for pickling and flavoring condiments, but I read that you shouldn't really eat too many of them plain.
• Onion family. If you're a sicko like me, you might even enjoy garlic, chives, and onion leaves and flowers. Of course these are edible too.
• Houtteynia. Hmm, I'm not THAT fond of the leaves, but the sharp citrus-y/orange odor when you break one is pretty nifty. Some Houtteynia has orange/red streaks on their leaves, for a nice colorful effect. The flowers are small, plain, but very tidy-looking. Houtteynia is inedible, as far as I know, just so that's clear....
• Pine. Well ... there IS nothing like the scent of certain types of pine, including some types of hedges. (I wouldn't eat these either.)

  Fragrant Foliage Grown for Flowers

• Calamint - Calamintha nepatoides/nepeta (?), possibly var. "White Cloud." The foliage is fragrant - spicy spearmint smell, very pleasant when crushed - but I really love this plant for its white masses of mint-family flowers (flower spikes). It blooms for months on end, right into autumn, without deadheading or indeed much attention whatsoever. Bees love the flowers, of course.
  I also must put in a plug for its companion in my garden, which blooms in front of it: Ceratostigma plumbaginoides (leadwort). Ceratostigma, though not fragrant as far as I've noticed, has beautiful blue flowers and lovely red-tinged foliage (and can be invasive in some conditions). The two together are the visual highlight of my neglected garden because they just keep flowering (white calamint over the blue flowers and red-tinged leaves is so striking), don't need trimming or deadheading, and keep looking fresh and interesting all throughout late summer and into fall. My echinacea is dead; the roses are a mass of black spots; everything is spent and done - except for the calamint and ceratostigma (and the too-airy tenacious sea lavender/hardy statice). I am amazed; I am in awe; I think I want to plant more of them both.

Fragrant Flowers

Unexpectedly Fragrant

Fragrant Roses

• Fragrant Cloud: Gamble Award. Deep orange. Smells like the most perfect, ripest nectarine ever, plus a good deep dose of good old "rose." It basically smells like a mouthwatering fruit of some kind -- the smell is so strong you can almost taste it. It is far more potent than "French Perfume" (I'm not impressed by "French Perfume") or even "Double Delight." The petals retain a delicate rose scent when dried.
• Double Delight: Red, pink, cream (reddens with sunlight, so you get outer red, inner cream). Gamble Award. Deep rose "perfume" smell. Not as potent at Fragrant Cloud, but its scent is far more floral and much less fruity, which is very nice. In some ways I like this scent more than the fruity ones, because it makes me less likely to want to run out and find a ripe nectarine. Unfortunately, dried Double Delight petals are not very fragrant.
• Mister Lincoln: Deep red. I can't always smell Mr. Lincoln in outdoor garden conditions, but when its perfume comes through, it's a deep rich rose smell plus nice fruit notes. Some say it is more fragrant than Double Delight. Cut a flower and bring it indoors for best smelling. I think the petals retain some scent when dried also.
• Angel Face: Gamble Award in 2002! Mauve or lavender. Smelled it once. Was very richly rose-y.
• Gertrude Jekyll. English rose. Pink. Though not a hybrid tea, it's also very nice. I went through a whole section of English roses at the local nursery, and this was the solitary stand-out in terms of fragrance.
• Sheila's Perfume (Shelia's Perfume) Floribunda. Yellow and orangey, I think. I went to Regan's Nursery, the humungous rose place in California, and this was one of the first roses I smelled, sort of by accident (I had printed this page out as reference, and didn't have time to smell random roses). Well, I was impressed. I see now I had a misspelled version of this rose on this page - but glad I found the real thing.
• Hot Tamale. Miniature rose. A beautiful mixture of pink, orange, yellow, and red. Most catalogs say it has little scent, but to me it smells strongly and pleasantly of tart apples.

Projects

• Dried Scents
  Things that I've found dry well (oh, I wish lilies would, oh well...):
  
  • Scented geranium (pelargonium) leaves
  • Rose petals (only some roses retain their scent)
  • Mints (peppermint, spearmint, etc.)
  • Lavender
  • Herbs (oregano, sage, dill, etc.)
  • Citrus rind (orange, tangerine, lemon, etc. -- keep it thoroughly dry or else it gets moldy)

• Bath Scent. You can throw dried tangerine or orange rinds into a hot bath for some nice, inexpensive citrus "aromatherapy"! This may be a traditional Japanese "thing." I'm not sure.

• Edible scents. There are many recipes on the Internet for edible foods based on roses and scented geraniums. And as far as edible scents go, you really can't beat ripe fruit, can you?

• Herbs and Spices.... Obviously, there are also many more recipes around for dried herbs. But what a great way to experience the smells of a garden: in food.

• Scent Sachet
  You can make a nice little "crush and sniff" bag, by getting either very fine mesh, or other perforated cloth-like material, and storing in it dried petals, flowers, and leaves.
  Nice combinations include:
  
  • Dried scented geranium leaves with dried lavender
  • Dried rose petals with dried lavender
  • Dried scented geranium leaves with dried peppermint
  • Dried flowers with dried rind of tangerine

• Other Projects.... Other projects I've seen include adding rose scent to personal care products like facial cremes and soap -- look for rose books that have this information. If you have enough scented material you could probably make one of those aromatherapy pillows, perhaps mixed with hard dried beans of some kind (bean pillow is a traditional Japanese thing for sure!).