The most fragrant native plants are just heavenly. Here’s what to plant now
For a fresh and aromatic look, consider this list of plant fragrances. Some are native and some are the offspring of native plants. None are native-only.
Photo: James Leffingwell
Photo: James Leffingwell
Photo: James Leffingwell
Photo: James Leffingwell
Photo: James Leffingwell
Photo: James Leffingwell
A few years ago, I gave the New York Botanical Garden its annual report of the best and worst native plant introductions in America. (At the time a plant nursery was moving to California.) The plant world, as an audience, was shocked. “This is an experiment,” many insisted.
The Garden received many letters questioning our selection process. We read them. We analyzed them and, on the basis of the content, revised our score to the New York Botanical Garden staff. No one had changed their mind on the plantings. None had said, “I changed my mind.”
There were some, however, who wrote, “Your list will make me forget about the garden,” which was not an encouraging statement. The consensus was that we had done an admirable job of selecting among the many thousands of plantings proposed by gardeners, nurserymen, and government plant officials, and that we had not made the Garden’s job more difficult or more time consuming.
We were wrong, because we had not considered the impact of native plant introductions. We also lacked the resources to consider it fully.
More than 200 native plant introductions have been proposed in the past 20 years. In the New York Botanical Garden’s recent report on the top 20 new introductions, 17 of them were from native species, as opposed to 10 percent. That suggests that about 16,000 native plant introductions
