Sensory garden plants with scented flowers: pink and white

James Lawrence, RHS Principal Horticultural Advisor, has designed this simple, attractive, and most importantly, sustainable border design for you to try at home with plants that are easy to grow, widely available and look good together.   

This simple sensory planting design features a combination of flowering shrubs and perennials

Perennials are plants that live for multiple years. They come in all shapes and sizes and fill our gardens with colourful flowers and ornamental foliage. Many are hardy and can survive outdoors all year round, while less hardy types need protection over winter. The term herbaceous perennial is used to describe long-lived plants without a permanent woody structure (they die back to ground level each autumn), distinguishing them from trees, shrubs and sub-shrubs. that will provide extra sensory stimulation and flowers with a pink and white theme. Once established, they will thrive together in your garden to provide interest throughout the year. 

James Lawrence

These plants help to stimulate the senses within a small space. The Osmanthus provides an evergreen backdrop to offset the remaining planting, and has perfumed flowers in winter along with the Daphne. The Rosa and Hydrangea provide scented summer interest.

The Hydrangea and Geranium will also attract pollinators, helping to increase garden biodiversity

The variety of living organisms (plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms) in a particular environment. Boosting the biodiversity of your garden has many benefits, including supporting wildlife, improving soil health and reducing the likelihood of pest and disease problems. .

In addition to colour, the Geranium will help to cover bare soil, protecting the soil surface, suppressing weeds and reducing soil moisture loss by soil evaporation from the soil surface.

Consider mulching

Mulch is a layer of material, at least 5cm (2in) thick, applied to the soil surface in late autumn to late winter (Nov-Feb). It is used to provide frost protection, improve plant growth by adding nutrients or increasing organic matter content, reducing water loss from the soil, for decorative purposes and suppressing weeds. Examples include well-rotted garden compost and manure, chipped bark, gravel, grit and slate chippings. the bare soil to help this further while waiting for plants to spread, using an organic mulch, preferably homemade compost. Mulches should be spread when the soil is already moist to help trap some of that moisture before it dries out in summer.

1 -Osmanthus x burkwoodiiis a slow-growing evergreen shrub with dark green leaves and clusters of small, highly scented white flowers in winter.

2 - Hydrangea paniculata ‘Big Ben’ has light green leaves and red-brown stems. Its scented flower clusters have a conical shape and open pale green, fading to green-white and maturing to deep pink.

3 - Daphne bholua ‘Jacqueline Postill’ is a semi-evergreen shrub with leathery green leaves. Highly fragrant pale purple-pink and white flowers open in late winter, which are followed by black berries.

4 - Rosa 'Claire Marshall'is a compact, bushy rose with glossy dark green foliage. Clusters of scented pink-purple flowers are borne from summer into autumn.

5 - Geraniummacrorrhizum 'Ingwersen's Variety'is a perennial

Perennials are plants that live for multiple years. They come in all shapes and sizes and fill our gardens with colourful flowers and ornamental foliage. Many are hardy and can survive outdoors all year round, while less hardy types need protection over winter. The term herbaceous perennial is used to describe long-lived plants without a permanent woody structure (they die back to ground level each autumn), distinguishing them from trees, shrubs and sub-shrubs. with aromatic, deeply lobed leaves and pale pink flowers with contrasting dark centres in early summer.

Sensory planting is designed to stimulate the senses of smell, sound, taste and touch, as well as sight. It tempts a visitor to view plants at close range, to reach out and touch, to inhale a fragrance, to listen to gentle sounds, and to actively experience the garden with all their senses.

By choosing plants that are good for senses, you can improve mood and general wellbeing. The sensory attributes allow people to engage with the environment around them in a way that is meaningful and beneficial to their mind and body.

Using the ethos of ‘right plant, right place’ to create a sustainable planting combination is great for the environment. It helps avoid waste and the use of products and practices needed to try and help ailing plants, such as the application of fertiliser. It also creates robust, long-lived planting that benefits soil health and garden biodiversity

The variety of living organisms (plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms) in a particular environment. Boosting the biodiversity of your garden has many benefits, including supporting wildlife, improving soil health and reducing the likelihood of pest and disease problems. . For more information about sustainable gardening, please see the RHS Sustainability Strategy.