One of the most rewarding aspects of gardening is the way a garden evolves over time, from the quiet promise of early spring to the lush riot of midsummer. As a gardener, one can amplify this seasonality by utilizing annual plants, bringing vibrant summer-long color, textures, and aromas to the landscape.
Annuals in our growing zone can either refer to plants that flower and set seed all in one growing season—most vegetables and many popular flowers like zinnias, cosmos, and sunflowers fit this description—or to plants that grow as perennials in a warmer climate but in our region are treated as annuals due to our cold winters.
The Fragrance Garden, which is designed to engage visitors on a multisensory level, is one of the areas at Brooklyn Botanic Garden that is built almost entirely on annual plantings, progressing from tulips in the spring to a profusion of annuals in summer. The garden is divided into four main beds, each with a specific theme—Fragrant Herbs & Culinary Plants, Fragrant Flowers, Interesting Textures, and Fragrant Foliage. Though these themes remain constant, each year I have the opportunity to experiment with different colors, scents, and textures, which keeps my job as gardener of this collection fun and challenging.
For this year’s design, I was inspired by our citrus collection and each container features plants with a citrusy aroma, from lemongrass to grapefruit-mint. The beds continue on with this theme, highlighting strong orange colors with purple and coral accents.
It’s never a bad time to stop by the Fragrance Garden, where scents and textures can help you enjoy the waning days of the season. Here are a few of this year’s plants that I find particularly exciting.
Favorite Annuals
All plant photos by Madelyn Ringold-Brown.
Buddha’s Hand
One of the oddest citrus plants that we have in our collection is currently on display in containers in the Fragrance Garden, where visitors can marvel at its otherworldly fruits. Citrus medica var. sarcodactylis (Buddha’s hand) traces its origins back to Southeast Asia, the birthplace of all citruses, and its fruit, as the common name implies, resembles a human hand. This fruit is extremely fragrant when ripe and is primarily used to perfume rooms, as its edible qualities leave much to be desired. Though it is not technically an annual, this tree can only be displayed outdoors during the summer. It is worth a trip to the Fragrance Garden just to smell the heady fragrance of its second flush of flowers and marvel at its fruit.
Sensitive Plant
I often plant Mimosa pudica (sensitive plant) in the entry beds of the Fragrance Garden. This flowering member of the pea family is native to the Caribbean and South and Central America. In our region it grows as an annual, but in warmer areas it can survive perennially. It has sweet-scented, pink pom-pom flowers and delicate pinnate leaves, which make it an attractive garden plant. It is easy to grow and thrives in full sun. And though I am partial to its overall habit and delicate flowers, I actually grow it for the way it responds to touch. The Fragrance Garden is one of only two garden areas at BBG where visitors are allowed to touch the plants, and when visitors reach in to stroke the fernlike leaves of the sensitive plant they respond by closing like a book and practically disappear!
Swan Plant
More than any other plant in the Fragrance Garden—by far—this one elicits the question, “What is that??” It’s Gomphocarpus physocarpus or swan plant! Native to Southeast Africa, swan plant is now available as an ornamental annual and will self-sow quite readily if given the opportunity. As a milkweed within the dogbane family, it is a source of food for monarch butterflies. The white flowers are beautiful, if discrete, growing in downward-facing clusters. But once the flowers begin to set seed, this annual plant really starts to put on a show. The seedpods are chartreuse, balloon-like structures covered in coarse hairs. These eventually dry out to reveal a packet of gentle fluff that carries the seeds aloft in a gust of wind. This astonishing beauty can be found in the north corner of the Fragrant Flowers bed.
Scented Pelargoniums
Some of my favorite things to grow in the Fragrance Garden are the scented pelargoniums. A member of the geranium family, pelargoniums come in an astonishing array of distinct scents from nutmeg to strawberry. Every year I choose a few to grow in the Fragrant Foliage bed, and this year there are also some fun citrus-themed varieties in the potted displays. My favorite is a cultivar called Pelargonium ‘Rober’s Lemon Rose’—if you gently rub the leaves between your fingers, it does smell just like lemons and roses. This variety is edible and can be used in desserts, teas, and cosmetics.
Root Beer Plant
Another fun plant that I grow year after year is Piper auritum (root beer plant). This special plant is in the pepper family and commonly known as hoja santa in Mexico, where it is used as an herb to wrap tamales or meat and is an essential ingredient in mole verde. The large tropical leaves are incredibly fragrant when rubbed, producing a scent very reminiscent of root beer. The delicate flowers are also quite interesting, consisting of white spikes covered in almost invisible florets. It is a seasonal resident of the Fragrant Foliage bed, where it thrives in the dappled shade.
Unusual Begonias
Over in the Interesting Textures bed there are a couple of intriguing begonias this year that boast remarkable shapes and textures. Begonia ‘Escargot’ with its silver highlights has a leaf that spirals around the stem, creating a shape like a snail shell. Begonia ‘Soli-mutata’ or sun-changing begonia has richly textured leaves that are reminiscent of the skin of a toad, completely covered in little bumps. And as the common name suggests, the leaves get darker as they are exposed to more sunlight. All begonias prefer dappled shade, well-draining soil, and high humidity.
Toothache Plant
Acmella oleracea (toothache plant) is an unusual annual that can be found in the Fragrant Herbs & Culinary Plants bed of the Fragrance Garden. Any part of this plant when chewed will create a buzzy, numbing sensation in the mouth, hence the common name toothache plant or buzz buttons. Native to South America, its leaves or flowers can be used in salads and stir-fries to add a tingly mouthfeel—similar to Szechuan peppercorns. It is a low-growing groundcover with charming, petal-less flowers that look like little gumdrops.
Tobacco Flowers
Tobacco flowers (Nicotiana sp.) are nothing new in the world of annuals, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve our appreciation. These stalwarts of the late-summer garden absolutely thrive in our increasingly hot and humid summers. Easily identifiable by their tubular flowers and sticky leaves, they come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, making them easy to work into annual designs. This year I chose to grow Nicotiana × sanderae ‘Perfume Deep Purple’ in the Fragrant Flowers bed for its lofty sprays of dark purple flowers and intoxicating fragrance. Any white-flowering Nicotiana cultivar will be reliably fragrant and all nicotianas are most fragrant in the evening, a strategy that helps to attract pollinating moths. Nicotianas are happy to self-sow in astonishing abundance, which contributes to the great variety of tobacco flowers you can see in the Fragrance Garden year after year.
