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the smells of a med. garden
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Posted by marvelousmarvin SoCal (My Page) on Fri, Oct 28, 05 at 7:29
| I'm new to all this, and I had a question about what plants to use that would smell nice. Now, I'm reading that its important to use fragant plants like lavender, rosemary, thyme, etc...
But, I was just wondering, won't all those smells compete with each other and muddle up all the fragances so that you lose each individual smell.
So, do you want to plant the lavendar as far away from the rosemary, as far away as etc..
Or, are you actually trying to combine all those fragances. If so, then which ones works well together. |
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RE: the smells of a med. garden
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- Posted by Sherill Southern Spain (My Page) on
Fri, Oct 28, 05 at 18:36
| Well, I can only report that here in Southern Spain fragrant 'herby' type plants such as Rosemary, Lavender, Santolina etc. are often seen planted together in swaths. It seems to work as the foliage of each compliment each other as do the fragrances. Moving on to Jasmine, Lillies etc. I would tend to plant them in a seperate bed or area of your garden as they have a different type of fragrance. This is just a personal choice but think of a pot of mixed dried herbs, or womens perfume, each lovely in their groups but not good mixed. |
RE: the smells of a med. garden
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| Sherill, Thanks. Just to confirm your advice, you're saying that you want all the herbs together so their smell complements each other. And, that you want all the more floral smells grouped together. But, you wouldn't mix herbs next to floral. |
RE: the smells of a med. garden
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- Posted by Sherill Southern Spain (My Page) on
Sat, Oct 29, 05 at 15:00
| Yes that is exactly what I mean, and I follow those rules in my own garden but of course that's just my opinion and the beauty of gardening is that you can do pretty much whatever you like. Please do let me know how you get on. |
Here is a link that might be useful: My mediterranean Garden
RE: the smells of a med. garden
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| Sherill, Interesting site. It must be fate because I was earlier looking for some pictures that showed what the houses and gardens of spain would look like. I was able to find pictures of Tuscany, but I believe that the house and landscaping is more reflective of spanish influence vs. italian. I'm not sure if this is correct, but I was thinking that an italian influenced garden would have lemon trees in terra cotta pots and cypress trees while a spanish garden would have oragne trees instead. I want to be authentic to the mediteranean style, and the bones of the landscaping is already mediteranean with a fountain and plenty of terra cotta tiles. But, I was wondering what people do with all that hardscaping? Do they use a few terra cotta pots filled with plants, or do they overfill that patio with pots and plants? As for the smell of a garden, I've since read a few books that talked about the smell of a garden. Surprisingly, none of them addressed the dilema I brought up. So, I'll just trust your instincts on that. Although, I now wonder if that's going to be even a problem since I've checked out some of those mediteranean plants to see how they smelled. And, I really couldn't smell them unless I put my nose right up to them. So, maybe, its not a problem for most gardens of the smells fighting each other. The style is where you had an enclosed thick walls and gates surronding the interior of the patio. I thought it would have been cool to walk into that area, and then be struck by the smells of a distinctive med. garden. But, I don't think that's possible now. |
RE: the smells of a med. garden
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to my knowledge plants have mechanism for your problem namely certain flowers emit fragances at different times. so they generally don't clash. like jasmin in the evening so you can plant ti where youare going to sit in the evening or at an entrance where evening guests can complain about it.
i have had to do a lot of hard landscaping in my place from nothing. what i did wad build mounds and placed pots to give height and paths with white pebbles. i tried to use locally available materials like rocks from the ground as much as possible. i have an arch with two climbing roses either side both fragant type. i was surprised to find roses grow so well here.
good luck |
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