I'm about to start my garden this year, & I love fragrant plants and/or flowers! What kind of plants or flowers give off a strong, but good smell? I'd like people to smell my beautiful flowers as they walk up my stoop, as well as viewing them!... So I need to know what flowers to use, & where to put them in my yard so they can be smelled/viewed, w/ out over powering them. Make sense?
Thanks so much!!!
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rainbowgardener
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It would help to know more about how much space you have and whether it is in sun or shade. A lot of the most beautifully fragrant flowers are shrubs-- lilacs, viburnums, daphnes, and of course roses. Beyond that one of my favorite fragrant flowers is nicotiana, ornamental tobacco. It's an annual, needs to be replanted every year. But it is easy to grow from seed, very adaptable re sun, shade, wet, dry, bad soil, whatever. And it pumps out fragrant flowers continually from May til hard frost (mine usually survive the first couple light freezes). The flowers close up in the heat of the day and open and are fragrant in the late afternoon and evening. So it's a great flower to have on your deck or patio (does well in containers) or where ever you sit in the evening. It also reseeds itself readily, so once you've grown it for a year or two, you are likely to have "volunteers" pop up in your yard, but it isn't invasive... what more could you ask!? 
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The Helpful Gardener
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I would not be without Lilac, lilies and buddleia. Peonies are not to be sniffed at either, And my fragrant hostas and daylilies always leave people pleasantly puzzled as they search the garden for the plant making that wonderful smell, never thinking for a second it could be the daylilies or the hosta. Cracks me up every time...
I'm a sick, sick man, and I'm going to bed...
HG
I'm a sick, sick man, and I'm going to bed...
HG
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rainbowgardener
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great suggestions everyone... except neither my buddleia (butterfly bush) nor my daylilies are fragrant. I guess it depends on variety. But all the rest are wonderful. As noted, the lavender doesn't exactly give off fragrance like the others, but is an amazing scent if you crush a little. I have lots of it. It's too late for this year, but in the fall plant daffodil bulbs for next spring. They are one of the earliest fragrant flowers.
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GardenLisa
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applestar
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There are many different fragrant flowers and foliage. The key is to know the sun exposure, soil (pH, type), and water requirement of the plants you want and match it to where you want to locate them. It's easier to get the right kind of plants than to try to make drastic changes to the location.
I'm growing creeping thyme to replace the dry patch of lawn between the driveway and the front door. Currently 2~3 foot diameter clumps -- eventually to carpet the entire area -- of thyme, when stepped on is delightful. In spring, there are fragrant varieties of jonquils, daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips in beds surrounding the front door. Another bed contains a dwarf Magnolia tree, a clump of paeony, and hyacinths. Early summmer, we have wild strawberries ripening in an island bed in the middle of the front yard. The curbside mailbox is surrounded by fragrant German iris and wormwood and lambs ears edging the sidewalk and street adds spicy scent when you brush by. (Also tried catmint here but it's not doing so well). The bed below the front corner of the house where the roof gutter drains contains Summersweet shrub, Spicebush, and fragrant Astilbes.
Walking around the house, the lawn along the hot dry SW side is being replaced by Sweet Clover, and the shady damp NE side is being taken over by Sweet Clover where it can manage it and Ground Ivy (considered a weed, but I like the spicy scent and the purple-pink flowers) Andromeda (Japanese, I think -- I really should get the native kind) shrub and purple Rhododendron grows there. Am planting Northern Bayberry at the gate and Japanese honeysuckle volunteered along one side of the arbor (may or may not keep it -- they're taking over the wooded back fence area so we get plenty of the honey-sweet fragrance in the summer. May replace with native honeysuckle for the hummingbird-attracting coral-red flowers), and are growing Apples and Pear trees in espalier against the fence. Let's not forget the new Apricot mume tree -- only a whip right now but the dozen or so flowers that bloomed early this spring promises darling sweet pink flowers and meltingly sweet fragrance in the years to come). The neighbor has a nice red-leafed plum with fragrant flowers just on the other side of the fence.
Sunny Meadow-to-be garden contains Sweet Vernal Grass close to the path to brush against, along with numerous other fragrant flowers including cosmos, spiderflower and fragrant goldenrod for late summer/fall.
Dessert rock garden (only bed where I've made a significant soil change) is planted with 3 kinds of lavender and yarrow foliage to brush against, with yucca, hardy cactus (brilliant orange-centered yellow fragrant flowers in summer) and two kinds of butterfly milkweeds, amsonias, sages, false indigos....
Shade Garden along the one fence under the plum (fragrant flowers) trees has native azaleas, hostas, hay-scented fern, sweet violets... Whew! I'm getting tired and this is only half the garden!
Let's skip the rest -- I'll just mention I have areas of escaped peppermint and yarrow in a sunny, dry, lawn kept mowed (delightful!), limited by the compacted path, and the shady leaf mulch behind the swingset is where I grow lemon balm. Anyway, I think you get the idea... 
I'm growing creeping thyme to replace the dry patch of lawn between the driveway and the front door. Currently 2~3 foot diameter clumps -- eventually to carpet the entire area -- of thyme, when stepped on is delightful. In spring, there are fragrant varieties of jonquils, daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips in beds surrounding the front door. Another bed contains a dwarf Magnolia tree, a clump of paeony, and hyacinths. Early summmer, we have wild strawberries ripening in an island bed in the middle of the front yard. The curbside mailbox is surrounded by fragrant German iris and wormwood and lambs ears edging the sidewalk and street adds spicy scent when you brush by. (Also tried catmint here but it's not doing so well). The bed below the front corner of the house where the roof gutter drains contains Summersweet shrub, Spicebush, and fragrant Astilbes.
Walking around the house, the lawn along the hot dry SW side is being replaced by Sweet Clover, and the shady damp NE side is being taken over by Sweet Clover where it can manage it and Ground Ivy (considered a weed, but I like the spicy scent and the purple-pink flowers) Andromeda (Japanese, I think -- I really should get the native kind) shrub and purple Rhododendron grows there. Am planting Northern Bayberry at the gate and Japanese honeysuckle volunteered along one side of the arbor (may or may not keep it -- they're taking over the wooded back fence area so we get plenty of the honey-sweet fragrance in the summer. May replace with native honeysuckle for the hummingbird-attracting coral-red flowers), and are growing Apples and Pear trees in espalier against the fence. Let's not forget the new Apricot mume tree -- only a whip right now but the dozen or so flowers that bloomed early this spring promises darling sweet pink flowers and meltingly sweet fragrance in the years to come). The neighbor has a nice red-leafed plum with fragrant flowers just on the other side of the fence.
Sunny Meadow-to-be garden contains Sweet Vernal Grass close to the path to brush against, along with numerous other fragrant flowers including cosmos, spiderflower and fragrant goldenrod for late summer/fall.
Dessert rock garden (only bed where I've made a significant soil change) is planted with 3 kinds of lavender and yarrow foliage to brush against, with yucca, hardy cactus (brilliant orange-centered yellow fragrant flowers in summer) and two kinds of butterfly milkweeds, amsonias, sages, false indigos....
Shade Garden along the one fence under the plum (fragrant flowers) trees has native azaleas, hostas, hay-scented fern, sweet violets... Whew! I'm getting tired and this is only half the garden!
Let's skip the rest -- I'll just mention I have areas of escaped peppermint and yarrow in a sunny, dry, lawn kept mowed (delightful!), limited by the compacted path, and the shady leaf mulch behind the swingset is where I grow lemon balm. Anyway, I think you get the idea... -
The Helpful Gardener
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So MOST of your garden is fragrant, AS. Very nice...
RG, you need to shoot for specific species and varieties to get fragrant daylilies or hostas, but I have never heard of a non-fragrant Buddleia; the English call it summer lilac for good reason. You must have gotten a defective model; take it into the shop. It might still be under warranty (don't you just wish it was like that?)
HG
RG, you need to shoot for specific species and varieties to get fragrant daylilies or hostas, but I have never heard of a non-fragrant Buddleia; the English call it summer lilac for good reason. You must have gotten a defective model; take it into the shop. It might still be under warranty (don't you just wish it was like that?)
HG