Fragrance Garden Audio Description Tour

Transcript for Directions

Directions from 990 Washington Avenue

Welcome to Brooklyn Botanic Garden. What follows are directions to the Alice Renagel Iris Fragrance Garden from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden BBG entrance at 990 Washington Avenue.

The eight-part audio descriptive tour of the Fragrance Garden begins once you arrive at the Fragrance Garden main gate.

The closest restrooms and snack bar to the Fragrance Garden are those in the Steinberg Visitor Center, located just inside and to the right of the 990 Washington Avenue entrance.

To make your way back here, after visiting the Fragrance Garden, exit the Fragrance Garden through the main gate on the west side, and turn right to head up the path toward the Visitor Center.

Please be aware that the main paths of Brooklyn Botanic Garden are also used for small vehicles.

To make your way to the Fragrance Garden from the BBG entrance at 990 Washington Avenue, you will turn left after entering to walk down the hill. The path curves to the right and you will first pass the Japanese-Hill-and-Pond-Garden on the right near the bottom of the hill. The path then bends to the left and there are two entrances to the Shakespeare Garden on the left.

Stay on the main path as it curves back toward the right again. The main gate to the Fragrance Garden is on your left.

There are two entrances to the Fragrance Garden. One entrance is through the main gate on its west side. The other is along a path that continues from the southern end of the Shakespeare Garden, entering the Fragrance Garden on its north side.

This descriptive tour will begin at the main gate.

Transcript for Introduction

Part One: Introduction

Welcome to the Alice Recknagel Ireys Fragrance Garden. This descriptive guide is an introduction to the Fragrance Garden and consists of eight parts. It is not intended to be a guided turn by walk, but is an overview of what you may find in the Fragrance Garden.

You are invited to explore the garden sections in any order you choose. The first part includes the current introduction.

The second part is a brief history of the Fragrance Garden.

The third part is a description of the general layout and organization of this garden.

And finally, the last five parts: fragrant herbs and culinary plants, fragrant flowers, the fountain, plants with interesting textures, and plants with fragrant foliage. Each describe a separate section of the Fragrance Garden in a little more detail.

Please feel free to jump around to whichever part of the tour is helpful for your visit today.

While visiting the Fragrance Garden, you are invited to touch and smell the plants, but please do not pick or break any of them. Please also be aware that there is wildlife in the garden, including chipmunks, squirrels, birds, bees, and wasps, butterflies, ants, and other assorted insects engaged in their daily activities.

We hope you have a lovely visit exploring the Fragrance Garden.

Transcript for History

Part Two: A Brief History of the Fragrance Garden

Alice Recknagel Ireys, a respected landscape architect, a pioneer in the field, and a member of BBG’s Women's Auxiliary, designed this garden in 1955. When the Fragrance Garden opened, it was the first garden in the country designed for visitors with visual impairments.

Here, visitors are encouraged to touch and smell the plants that were chosen for their scent or feel. In each corner of the garden, there is a raised bed of plants surrounded by a 28-inch-high stone wall.

Along the top of the wall is a continuous metal railing that has brass plaques with both braille and raised print, identifying some of the plants. The plants have been organized by themes, including fragrant herbs and culinary plants, fragrant flowers, plants with interesting textures, and plants with fragrant foliage.

There is a tactile map located outside and just to the right of the Fragrance Garden’s main gate, highlighting these sections as well as a few specific plants.

The Fragrance Garden, like all gardens, is a living, ever-changing and evolving space. Many staple plants will always be highlighted here, but many will change from season to season and year to year.

In addition, some of the plant names have changed since the garden's creation and other plants have fallen out of garden fashion or no longer grow well in the shady corner they were designated to. These changes are evident in the brass plaques whose braille text does not always correspond to current plantings. Rather, they serve as a historical record of the garden's original layout.

Transcript for Layout

Part Three: Layout of the Fragrance Garden

As you stand on the main path before entering the Fragrance Garden, facing its main gate, you will find two signs to your right located where the path meets the Fragrance Garden. The first sign closer to the gate is a three-dimensional tactile map. Please feel free to explore it. The key for this map is on the left. Raised print symbols and braille are used to indicate a few specific plants and to identify the different sections of the Fragrance Garden.

Notice that the garden is in the shape of an oval. It runs about 100 feet from left to right and 60 feet from bottom to top. The main entrance gate is at the middle of the bottom or western side. It is a freestanding decorative metal gate between two stone pillars. However, there is no wall on this side of the garden.

A natural wall is created on either side of the gate with a thick border of trees about 12 to 18 feet deep that separates the garden from the main path back to the Visitor Center. On the left or north side of the Fragrance Garden is the path that leads into the Shakespeare Garden. At the top of the Fragrance Garden on the eastern edge, directly opposite the main gate, there is a small hexagonal fountain. There are usually three large pots on the ground on either side of the fountain, and they are often filled with plants about five feet high.

The land behind the entire eastern side of the garden extends another 18 to 24 feet back to Washington Avenue at the outer edges of the property. This land slopes upward and is filled with a variety of trees, both evergreen and deciduous. In the fall, after some of the leaves have fallen, several brick apartment buildings can be seen across the street. In the summer, most of these buildings are hidden behind the lush leaves of two tall hackberry trees.

Finally, on the right side of the Fragrance Garden toward the south, between two gnarled Sargent's weeping hemlock trees, are four steps leading up to a patio outside the Administration Building. The steps are blocked by a hanging rope and a sign that says, “Staff Only.”

At the center of the garden is an oval lawn of grass. At the far left and right edges of the oval are a line of small green shrubs that hug the north and south edges of the lawn like a pair of parentheses. The grassy lawn is accessible for visitors to walk across or sit on, but chairs and blankets are not allowed.

There is a wide bluestone walkway that runs around the outer edges of the grassy oval. These stones are square and rectangular in different sizes and in various shades of gray. They range from light gray to blue gray, and dark gray.

At the bottom or western edge of the walkway are three backless benches interspersed with large pots filled with plants. At the top eastern edge of the walkway, there are four more evenly spaced benches interspersed with similar large planter pots. The benches and planter pots are generally placed snug up against the lawn, so there's plenty of room to walk along the path, though staff will move them from time to time while doing work in the area.

Stretching around the perimeter of the garden are four elevated plant beds held behind 28-inch-high stone walls. The plants extend backward for three to six feet. Shorter plants are in front and progressively taller plants are toward the back.

The stone retaining walls are made of six or seven levels of rectangular stones in varying sizes and in shades of brown and tan. The top of each stone wall is flat and has a raised metal guide rail running along it. Placed on the rail at intervals are brass plaques with raised print and braille providing information about some of the plants. A foot rail also runs along the entire length of the retaining walls, placed about six inches off the ground and protruding about three inches out from the stone wall.

The Fragrance Garden is open all year, but the plants in this garden change seasonally. Some plants remain year round, but many die in the winter and need to be replaced with new seedlings each summer. Others are taken indoors for the winter and brought back to the garden in the spring once the weather warms up. In the fall, all four of the garden’s beds are planted with bulbs that burst into a fragrant kaleidoscope of blooms in the spring.

These are the flowers that sprout from bulbs planted in the fall and winter. First, green stems poke up from the ground, and then stalks begin to grow, short for crocus and longer for tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils. The tulips have thick stems and long broad leaves while the hyacinths have long clusters of flowers pointing out from a central stem. Daffodils open like a teacup on a saucer, sometimes with both the same color and sometimes not. Daffodils can be any combination of white, yellow, and orange. These blooms are very delicate, so please breathe in their fragrances and feel them gently if you decide to reach out and touch.

After using the tactile map, please take a moment to explore the main gate designed by former BBG staff member Charlotte Mentges. The gate is made of black metal and is hung between two square stone pillars. On top of each pillar is a tureen-shaped pot filled with plants in spring and summer. These plants are lush and green.

The gate has an openwork design and consists of four panels. The outer two panels are slim vertical rectangles, and the inner two panels, which swing inward to open the gate, are shorter with an arched top swooping down in a semicircle resembling a smile. The left panel has individual letters attached that spell "Fragrance Garden" in gold.

Underneath are two golden dianthus flowers and a square plaque with the following text in raised print: “This gate is the gift of the Clayton Family in Memory of Abraham Clayton, 1955.”

The center two panels of the gate are each decorated with five golden dianthus flowers, each of which has five petals, long black stems, and leaves. These flowers are about half an inch thick. Feel free to explore their shapes. Sometimes there are living dianthus flowers inside the garden. The far-right panel has open lettering that spells out “Brooklyn Botanic Garden” in gold.

Underneath are two golden dianthus flowers and a square golden plaque with the following text in braille: “This gate is the gift of the Clayton family in memory of Abraham Clayton. It is dedicated with affection to his granddaughter Mary, with the hope that she will learn the world of nature through sensitive fingers. 1955.”

The gate is almost always propped open, so you should be able to walk right in.

About five feet into the garden, on the ground, there is a plaque amid the flagstones. The text on it reads, “Dedication stone Alice Recknagel Ireys Fragrance Garden. In honor of her great love of and contribution to Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Landscape architect, teacher, distinguished advisor, auxiliary member, and designer of the Fragrance Garden, dedicated June 12th, 2001.”

You are now invited to explore the garden in any direction you prefer.

This audio description is presented as if you turned left inside the main gate and were walking around the oval in a clockwise direction. If you take that route, all of the raised plant beds will be on your left at the outer edges of the garden while the benches, lawn, and shrubs will be on your right at the inner edges.

The first elevated planting bed in the lower left is filled with fragrant herbs and culinary plants. The bed in the top left contains fragrant flowers. The bed in the top right is filled with plants with interesting textures, and the bed in the lower right contains plants with fragrant foliage. Each of these is described in more detail in different sections of this audio description, so you can switch to whichever description you need in whatever order you choose.

We hope you will enjoy your time in the Fragrance Garden and that you will return in different seasons to explore new textures and fragrances.

Transcript for Fragrant Herbs

Part Four: Fragrant Herbs and Culinary Plants in the Lower Left northwest corner

If you enter the Fragrance Garden through the main gate, the first plant bed on your left is the one with culinary plants. Plants here are used for cooking or flavoring foods or for medicinal purposes.

If you are visiting in the fall, the bed may be more sparse, as some plants need to be taken indoors during the colder months. In spring and early summer, some of these plants will be in bloom. Reach out lightly to feel for flowers among the leaves and stems. If you are here in the summer, the bed will be lush and plentiful with a large variety of plants any home cook would love.

In the two corners of this elevated plant bed are small metal lamps with trapezoidal shades. Be mindful when reaching out that you don't bump one.

Beyond the beds are trees separating the garden from the main pathway leading back to the Visitor Center. There is a smooth-barked magnolia tree with a gray-white trunk in the northwest corner. When it starts blooming in March, it boasts large, cup-shaped white flowers with pink centers.

You may find some familiar scents among the kitchen herbs and culinary plants, such as peppermint, rosemary, or chive. Sometimes you can stand still, and the wind will carry a scent to you. At other times, waving your hand across a plant and just jostling the stems a little will release a fragrance. Reach out and rub some leaves between your fingers and then smell your fingertips. Can you find mint and sage here?

Brass plaques along the guide rail identify some of the many kitchen herbs planted in the Fragrance Garden. Thyme can be found year-round and is low and bushy. Chives have hollow tubelike leaves, almost like thick grass, and in early summer they grow small clusters of dense, lavender-colored flowers at the tips of their stems.

You may find spearmint or peppermint or a sage that smells like pineapple, or one that has soft, fuzzy leaves. There is also dill and fennel with delicate, feathery foliage.

Feel the differences in the leaves and enjoy their aromas, but please don't pick or taste anything—we want to share these plants with all of our visitors.

One fun plant that is found here is the sensitive plant, which is in the pea family. Its leaves are a bit like feathers, with matching pairs growing left and right off a long central stem. If you touch any part of the stem, all of the leaves will fold in on themselves like a book closing. It takes just the gentlest of touches to make this happen, and then the leaves stay closed for a few minutes. Reach out gently to feel the sensitive plant and be mindful that its stem may be a bit prickly.

As you approach the end of this bed, there are long cascades of wormwood spilling over the stone wall. The small, densely packed leaves are very soft to the touch and are an icy gray-green.

If you continue straight ahead, you will continue up the path towards the Shakespeare Garden. Instead, turn to your right and cross over the path to the next plant bed in the top left corner. These are the fragrant flowers and are described in the next section.

Transcript for Fragrant Flowers

Part Five: Fragrant Flowers in the upper left northeast corner.

The northeast corner in the upper left of the Fragrance Garden is often the most colorful, especially in spring and summer. This is one of two beds that flank the fountain on the east side of the Fragrance Garden.

Both beds are elevated and terraced. The front bed is about three to six feet deep and is held back by the 28-inch-high stone retaining wall. At the back of the main bed of plants, there is a smaller stone wall that is about two feet high. Plants on the higher terrace extend back about another three feet until they meet the row of trees that border the garden and shield it from Washington Avenue.

This elevated, terraced bed is dedicated to fragrant flowers and is often awash in bright yellow, orange, white, pink, blue, purple, and red. Even the leaves range in a variety of shades, from bright lime green to silver gray green to a rich dark green.

The plants here are specifically chosen for their fragrant flowers, which attract both people and pollinators. There are butterflies, bees, and wasps flitting about in warmer weather.

Toward the back of the higher beds are a few American arborvitae, narrow evergreen trees with a trim triangular shape and bright green pine needles. These are about six feet tall but can grow up to three feet a year.

Another evergreen found here is the Hinoki cypress, which has a reddish-brown trunk with vertical striations. There are also Eastern hemlock growing on the hill and two very large hackberry trees in the back right, near the Administration Building. Both these trees have a trunk about two feet in diameter and can reach up to 70 feet high. From inside the garden, they seem to dwarf the six-story apartment buildings on the other side of Washington Avenue.

Fragrant shrubs are also planted on this hill, including lilac, mock orange, and abelia. The small heart-shaped flowers of the lilac grow in dense, cone shaped clusters. When they bloom in spring, their sweet, heady fragrance hangs heavy in the air. Mock orange has dark green, serrated, oval shaped leaves, and in late spring, sweet, fragrant flowers bloom over the entirety of the shrub in clusters of five to seven. Its flowers each have four rounded petals. Abelia, a member of the honeysuckle family, has glossy dark green leaves that turn brown in autumn. In midsummer to fall, it sports clusters of pastel pink and lavender flowers shaped like small funnels.

Flowers can be divided into three categories: perennials, annuals, and biannuals. Perennials survive all year, and although their leaves die in the winter, new ones grow back each spring. Some examples of perennials in this garden are the fragrant roses that grow on trellises at the left of this bed. These include the Charles Darwin rose, with its densely furled yellow flowers and an almost lemony fragrance, and the Blanc Double Decor Bay, which is a rugosa rose with extremely fragrant white flowers.

Another perennial you may find in spring is the wallflower, which has yellow-orange flowers in tall clusters. This plant often grows in cracks and walls and has a sweet smell. Other perennials you may find include iris and dianthus.

Annuals are plants that live their entire lives in just one year, growing from seed to plant and then dying. One annual in this garden is heliotrope, which has small, star shaped flowers that grow in dense clusters. The flowers can be white, lavender, and most commonly, a dark, rich purple color. They have a fragrance that reminds some people of cherry pie or vanilla.

Some plants that are perennials in warmer climates are treated as annuals in New York because they cannot withstand the cold. One such plant is the nasturtium, which has small flowers with five petals and a strong aroma. When these bloom, they are bright yellow and orange.

Other fragrant annuals include petunia, with its delicate flowers, marigold, with its rigid pompom shaped blossoms, and garden verbena, whose small flowers cluster together in clumps of eight to ten and come in a wide range of colors, including red, pink, purple, white, and bicolor.

Biannuals are plants that take two growing seasons to complete their biological life cycle. Biannuals grow their roots, stems and leaves in the first growing season, and flowers and fruits in the second, after which they die. They are commonly found in temperate climates like that of New York.

In the middle of this bed, planted toward the front, you will find a biannual called campanula, or bellflower. Its deep, vibrant purple blossoms grow lush and dense in the spring. They burst from the top of the flowerbed and even push their way through the cracks in the wall, spilling forth from the stone.

Can you guess how this plant got its name? Its five petaled flowers are shaped like small bells. The word "campana,"" which translates to “bell” in Italian and Spanish, is also the name of the large bell used in medieval churches and bell towers.

Reach out gently to brush your hand against the flowers to catch their scent. Be mindful of the metal lamps in the corner of the flower bed.

Notice that some flowers grow on long stems and others are quite low to the ground. Sweet alyssum is a low annual plant with a carpet of white, pink, and lavender flowers and a scent that is a mix of honey and vanilla. To release the aroma, just press gently on this low growing plant.

Other low-growing plants that cascade over the retaining wall are the candy tuft, a woody shrub with upright white flowers, and the more densely packed snow in winter, which is like a thick, springy carpet of small, white flowers. You may even find flowering tobacco, with long, narrow, droopy flowers that open only at night to release their scent.

Which scents are your favorite? If you were making a bouquet, which would you choose?

Explore the different textures and shapes of the flowers as well as how they grow. Note that some flowers are single blossoms at the end of a long stem, like the tulips and daffodils that bloom in spring. Other plants have multiple tiny flowers growing outward along a single stalk, like lavender, hyacinth, and common germander.

Flowers can grow on the ground interspersed with their leaves like a thick, springy carpet, or they can be clustered together in bunches. Enjoy exploring the variety of shapes and textures of flowers in our garden.

The scents of flowers are all different. Is there one that you prefer? Do any of them bring up memories? Are some scents stronger than others?

In this area of the garden, you might also hear traffic or the water from the fountain. There is more shade and protection from noise in the summer, when the leaves are denser. The garden is also under a flight path, so there are many airplanes that pass overhead.

If you take a moment to rest on one of the benches where the central lawn meets the walkway, you may hear the skittering of chipmunks or small birds visiting the fountain.

As you come to the end of the fragrant flowers bed, please be mindful that there are large planters between the fragrant flowers bed and the fountain. You may want to move closer to the middle of the path to avoid them. There are four benches where the walkway meets the lawn, and you are invited to relax and enjoy the sounds and smells of the garden.

Transcript for Fountain

Part Six: The Fountain

The stone wall on the upper terrace at the back of the fragrant flowers bed continues all the way across to the stone wall on the upper terrace behind the textured plants bed to the right of the fountain. But instead of staying the same height all the way across the garden, this stone wall rises in three stepped segments up to the fountain and then descends in three stepped segments to the next flower bed.

At the center of the east wall bordering Washington Avenue the wall is highest behind the fountain. Here, it is about 7 feet high and 15 feet wide. Both the wall and the fountain are made of the same stone as the retaining walls. The fountain is nestled against the back center and has, in front of it, a hexagonal pool with a raised rim that is about two feet high. The fountain is 15 feet from left to right and about five feet from front to back.

The water in the fountain is not clean enough to drink, but you are invited to dip your hands in to rinse off any scents from the plants you've explored. The water is only about two feet deep. During the cold months, the garden turns the water off. If you'd like, feel free to toss a coin in the fountain for good luck.

There are two small statues in the fountain. At the left is a gray metal dolphin fish, about three feet long. Its tail is curved up, and it is facing forward and to the right, spouting water out of its open mouth. To the right of the fish is a statue of a small young girl, about four years old. She is about 3.5 feet tall and stands on a round pedestal. Her left arm is outstretched to the side, and she holds her right arm up at shoulder level, with her palm facing down. On the back of her hand sits a butterfly. This statue is made of copper that has weathered to a mint green. The young girl smiles down at the butterfly.

There are four plaques around the fountain:

On the back wall to the left of the fountain is a plaque that reads in raised print:
"A gift in memory of Herman Stutzer, Helped to create this garden of fragrance. 1955"

A plaque on the top of the front ledge of the fountain reads:
"When the golden day is done
Through the closing portal,
Child and garden, flower and sun
Vanish all things mortal."
— R.L. Stevenson
In memory of Leon Gilbert, 1922–2001

On the back wall to the right of the fountain there is a plaque that reads:
"The restoration of the Fragrance Garden, designed by Alice Recknagel Ireys in 1955, was made possible by a gift of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Auxiliary in June 1994."

Another plaque farther to the right on the back wall reads:
"This garden was sponsored by the Women’s Auxiliary of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and built chiefly by members of the Botanic Garden staff. Florence Abraham Blum, Honorary Chairman, 1955."

To the right of the fountain, you can continue to the next plant bed in the upper right corner. These are the plants with interesting textures and are described in the next section.

Transcript for Interesting Textures

Part Seven: Plants with Interesting Textures in the Upper Right Southeast Corner and the Weeping Hemlock by the Administration Building

The southeast corner in the upper right of the Fragrance Garden is for plants with interesting textures. Follow the guide rail around this raised bed to explore the variety of plants with different types of leaves and stems the gardeners have brought together for you to touch.

There are a few flowers here, but the predominant color is green. Not all leaves are green though, there are some that are a deep maroon, and others that are icy gray.

Notice first the diverse texture of the leaves. Are they stiff or feathery? Waxy or furry? Do they feel smooth and slippery or rough and scratchy? Some might have thorns, so please be mindful when exploring these plants.

What are the edges of a leaf like? Are they smooth, frilly, sharp, or serrated? Do both sides of the leaves feel the same? Many leaves have veins protruding from the underside that you can trace with your fingers. The large leaves of the heartleaf bergenia have toothy edges and veins you can feel.

Some plants have leaves with small, raised dots, or spores, that you can feel. Ferns don’t grow seeds, but grow from small dust-like particles called spores. The cinnamon fern has leaves branching off a central stem. In early June, feel behind the leaves for the brown spores that help it to reproduce.

Leaves come in many different shapes and grow in different arrangements. They may be three times the size of your hand, or smaller than your fingernail. Some leaves are long and oval and others are small and round. Pine needles are one type of leaf. In winter when the other trees lose their leaves, the pine trees will still have theirs. If you visit the garden in late fall or winter, you may find many dried up and dead leaves scattered across this plant bed.

Despite the endless variations in leaf sizes, shapes, and textures, all leaves help a plant absorb sunlight, convert it into sugars, and then release oxygen into the air. Sometimes the shape or texture of a leaf can give you a hint as to its native habitat. Thick, spongy leaves with a waxy coating are often found in hot, dry climates whereas leaves that are large or thin are found in places with plenty of rain and moisture.

In this bed you may find plants with animal names, such as foxtail fern, elkhorn fern, and tapeworm plant. Do these feel the same? Can you guess why they have those names? Be mindful of the metal lamp in the corner while you explore this bed.

You may also find donkey-tail spurge and lamb’s-ears. Donkey-tail spurge feels a bit like a bottle brush and is a long strand of tiny leafy flowers strung together. Each strand bends in a different direction and is made up of soft, stiff green flowers with pointed leaves. The flowers look almost like miniature artichokes or 5-pointed stars. Lamb’s-ears have longer, pointy oval-shaped leaves covered with tiny white hairs that make them incredibly soft and fuzzy to the touch.

When you reach the end of the guard rail you are very close to one of the two trees standing on the south side of the garden. These are Sargent’s weeping hemlock trees. These short, hunched-over trees are only about 10 feet high, but at least twice as broad.

Their outstretched, narrow branches offer year-round shade beneath soft pine needles. The newest needles, growing outwards at the tips, are a bright lime green compared to the older dark green needles. Reach a hand overhead and brush the leaves and see whether any small pinecones are growing. Can you smell the tree?

The hemlock you just explored grows just to the left of the steps that lead up to the Administration Building. The trees and the steps are separated from visitors by low hanging ropes. Please mind your step and stay on the path as you continue across the southern end of the garden to the second tree.

The hemlock to the right of the steps seems older. It has thicker branches, and they seem to be even more gnarled and ragged than the first tree. These branches are lower and extend out closer to the path, so you should be able to reach straight out and touch one or two of them. Notice the texture of the bark. Feel across the limbs. One has two smooth areas where other branches were cut off, and the other has a callused elbow joint where it bends upward.

Enjoy the shade of the tree for as long as you like, then continue to the bottom right section of the garden to the last plant bed. This is the Plants with Fragrant Foliage bed in the southwest corner and will be described in the next section.

Transcript for Fragrant Foliage

Part Eight: Plants with Fragrant Foliage in the Lower Right (Southwest) Corner

If you started your walk at the main gate and traveled around the Fragrance Garden clockwise, the last bed you will reach is the one in the lower right southwest corner. This bed is dedicated to plants with fragrant foliage.

Most flowers give off their aroma without any interaction from us. Fragrant leaves, on the other hand, need to be activated in order to release their scents. Reach into the bed and gently rub a leaf between your fingers, without plucking it off the stem. Then, smell your fingers. How do the scents of the leaves differ in this bed?

Depending on the season, you may find one or more varieties of mint here. Corsican mint has very tiny leaves and grows low to the ground like a carpet. Sometimes it grows between the rocks in a wall and resembles moss. Does this smell remind you of anything? This mint is often found in toothpaste, chewing gum, and candy.

Nearby is pennyroyal, a member of the mint family. Can you smell the difference? This mint is often used in flea collars.

There is also a geranium whose leaves smell like peppermint in spring and summer. You may find as many as five different scented geraniums in this bed. It’s not the flowers that smell, but the leaves. And while not all geraniums have sweet-smelling leaves, there should be several here that you can compare, such as the apple geranium, lemon geranium, rose geranium, and the oak-leaved geranium. What does the last one smell like to you? It gets its name from the shape of its leaves and not from the fragrance it gives off. How do the shapes and textures of the different geranium leaves compare?

There are other members of the mint family in this bed that don’t smell anything like mint. Both lamb’s-ears and silver sage have little white hairs on the leaves that make them super soft to touch and also help make the plants deer-resistant. Do they smell alike?

One plant that may smell similar is the pineapple sage, which many people don’t think smells at all like pineapple. What does it smell like to you? Would you give it a different name?

In the fall and winter, the sweet fern and lavender plants in this bed may be barren and twiggy. If there aren’t leaves to feel, examine the shapes of the stems. If the lemon verbena or lavender are in bloom, just sweeping your arms across the stems might be enough to release a heady aroma.

Sweet fern is a medium green plant that grows stiffly upright with individual leaves leaning outward with serrated edges and can be found in this spot year round. These leaves are a little rough on the top and you can feel their veins underneath. Does it smell more like a sweet spice, or a turpentine?

As you come toward the end of this bed, you may find lantana, a plant with stiff leaves, small clusters of bright flowers, and an unusual citrusy smell. As you continue along the path, the retaining wall and guide rail will start to curve to the left, leading to the main gate.

You’ve now come to the end of the audio descriptive tour of the Fragrance Garden. To return to Steinberg Visitor Center at 990 Washington Avenue, exit through the main gate, turn right, and continue on the path that slopes upward.

Feel free to explore other areas at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. We hope you enjoyed your visit to the Fragrance Garden, and that you will return in different seasons to explore it again.

Transcript for Credits

Working draft BBG Fragrance Garden Audio Description. Created in collaboration by Laura H. Congleton, Nefertiti Matos Olivares, Bailey Binky, and Brooklyn Botanic Garden staff. Narrated by Nefertiti Matos Olivares, 2025.