Window Garden Fragrance

Forlorn as the winters outdoors are for color

, they are even more lacking in the scents that delight us so much during the other seasons. How much window gardens can add to our enjoyment then if they give perfume as well as color!

The paperwhite narcissus, Chinese sacred lily, hyacinth and lily-of-the-valley are familiar to most lovers of indoor gardening; but there are a number of other flowers, most of them usually thought of as being for the outdoor garden, that will yield delightful scent during the barren months.

Some annual flowers, such as sweet-smelling stock, that have not started to bloom in the garden at frost time may even be transplanted to a window box or pot, to give color and odor before the real house plants are in flower.

Early, too, in its bloom is the easily grown autumn crocus. The bulbs of Crocus sativus may he planted in early fall in containers either of sandy soil or pebbles and water. A storage period is not needed. The fragrant white or lilac-purple flowers open their delicate petals quickly, before any leaves have formed.

The romantic Southern jasmine can be grown in a window garden! The Catalonian or Spanish jasmine (lasminum grandiflorunt) is obligingly simple in its cultural requirements. It likes sunlight and warmth, and, settled in its pot in a south window, will begin about the end of winter to fill the air with the ineffable perfume of its starry white flowers. I found this out in my quest to try all of my backyard landscaping ideas. In summer the pot can be sunk up to its rim in outdoor garden soil, where the plant will have partial shade and some support to climb on. It should be pruned back in the fall, and kept indoors in a cool place during the fall and early winter. It needs little water during this period. By the first of the year it is ready to be returned to its south window, where it can be watered daily.

The little blue-flowered grape hyacinth, with what garden essayist Norman Taylor calls a "fruity and musky" odor, may be had in early February by planting the bulbs in pots of good soil in October or November. They should be kept in a cool place and watered enough to keep the soil moist until the foliage begins to push up, then moved to a sunny window.

You may be assured of April fragrance if you grow Gladiolus tristis, famed more for its scent than its flowers, which are yellowish-white streaked with purple. Plantings may be made in January. Place the bulbs about two inches apart and cover them with about two inches of soil. They can be kept in a temperature of 50 to 60 degrees and should come into bloom in April.

by: Thomas Fryd

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