The 14 best night-scented flowers that will fill your garden with fragrance after the sun sets
Discover night-scented flowers that smell beautiful in the luminescent evening garden
As the sun slips from the sky, these stunning night-scented blooms reveal scent and luminosity.
The best fragrant flowers that smell strongly at dusk have qualities that are revealed or enhanced as the sun goes down. This adds an extra dimension to a garden and allows you to make the most of your outdoor space in the evenings, which takes on a particular importance if you’re out at work all day.
Night-scented plants release heady perfumes, while the cool tones of blues, lilacs, creams and whites come to the fore as they develop a luminescence in low light levels. This list includes favourites from Hannah and Nick Wade, who run Gardeners Delight nursery in Barnstaple, Devon, who have a passion for propagating plants specifically for pollinators, and they have a particular interest in nighttime pollinators. These suggestions are dreamy for around a seating area and for pots near doors and windows so that their fragrance drifts indoors too.
Our favourite night-scented flowers
1. Matthiola longipetala subsp. bicornis
Night-scented stock is a hardy annual that’s quick and easy to grow from seed. Although its short, wiry stems look a tad scruffy in daylight when the flowers are tightly closed, the pale pink, lilac and ivory blooms unfurl as the light fades. This is when they gleam like tiny stars and emit an intoxicating perfume.
2. Dianthus
The spicy clove aroma of garden pinks lingers well into the evening. White ‘Memories’ available from Crocus was bred by Whetman Pinks in Devon and is similar to classic ‘Mrs Sinkins’, but much improved. It is compact with narrow, grey-green leaves and sparkly white blooms. Check out Whetmans’ Scent First range for some of the best scented pinks. Dianthus have a long flowering season, from May to October, if you keep deadheading, and it’s easy to take cuttings from them, too.
3. Sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis)
The clusters of purple and white flowers on the tall stems of sweet rocket, gently glow at dusk, which is also when their sweet fragrance is at its best. Sweet rocket is a biennial, so it needs to be sown in the summer, grown on and planted out in autumn. Then, leave it to its own devices, and it will produce its fragrant flowers the following summer.
4. Zaluzianskya ovata
Plant table-top pots with night phlox, a compact, tender perennial that’s native to South Africa, whose scented blooms pack a punch. The deep-pink buds open in early evening to reveal unusual, white, heart-shaped petals and an intense evening perfume.
5. Gladiolus murielae
For late-summer scent and evening luminosity, plant bulbs of Abyssinian gladiolus, more commonly known as acidanthera, in pots. This tender bulb should be planted in late spring and will soon produce strappy green leaves and slim flower spikes with white petals and burgundy centres from August until October.
6. Trachelospermum jasminoides
This highly scented evergreen climber is a must if you live in a milder part of the country or have a warm courtyard garden in the city. Its white, starry flowers – like little propellers up close – release a heady scent that’s strongest in the evening. It’s a twining climber that doesn’t self-climb, so it will need wires or trellis to support it, and may need a few of its stems tying in at first, to give it a helping hand.
7. Lilies
One of the most evocative scents of summer has to be that of lilies. Among all the flowers that smell, they’re one of the strongest – too strong for some people, but if you’re a fan, you won’t regret planting a few bulbs of Lilium regale available from J Parkers, to enjoy its heady scent on summer evenings. For a more refined look, consider Lilium longiflorum, which has elegantly elongated trumpets in pure white.
All oriental lilies are strongly perfumed. Try ‘Casa Blanca’, which produces huge, trumpet-shaped flowers on stems up to 1m high. All three have white blooms that sparkle in the gloaming. If you grow them in containers, make sure that they’re large and weighty – lilies can get top-heavy and pots can easily blow over in windy weather. Also watch out for scarlet lily beetles and their larvae, which can quickly strip plants to skeletons.
If you grow them in containers, make sure that they’re large and weighty – lilies can get top-heavy and pots can easily blow over in windy weather. Also watch out for scarlet lily beetles and their larvae, which can quickly strip plants to skeletons.
8. Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum)
Billowing honeysuckles fill the evening air with their sweet perfume – a quintessential English garden scent. Try growing one to engulf an archway or porch with its clusters of pretty tubular flowers.
‘Belgica’, available from Gardener’s Dream, is an early-flowering cultivar that starts to bloom in May or June, with ruby-pink flowers that turn apricot-yellow as they age.
9. Brugmansia
As light fades, so does our ability to see, and small details in particular are lost. So try using plants with bold foliage and striking silhouettes. Brugmansia ticks both of these boxes with its large leaves and impressive dangling trumpet-shaped flowers that smell strongly.
This tender shrub is probably most straightforward to grow in a large container that you bring outside onto the terrace for summer, but can be taken into a greenhouse or conservatory to over-winter frost-free.
10. Nicotiana sylvestris
White flowers can often appear washed out in strong sunshine, but twilight is their time to shine. This tobacco plant is a statuesque beauty with tall stems (up to 1.5m) and long, white, trumpet- shaped flowers held in drooping clusters that give off a sweet perfume at dusk. It will happily cope with some shade.
Hannah and Nick Wade’s plants for after-hours interest
11. Digitalis purpurea f. albiflora
’Foxgloves are a popular evening flower because they bring drama, and the white cultivars are very effective in shade,’ says Hannah. Try classic all-white D. purpurea f. albiflora, but for more interest, opt for classic ‘Pam’s Choice’ with maroon speckles on its throat.
12. Wisteria floribunda f. alba ‘Shiro-noda’
‘With long white snowy flowers that hang like lace, this white wisteria gives a shimmering Bridgerton-esque romance to the garden, especially at night,’ says Hannah. ‘Shiro-noda’ bears racemes up to 60cm in length in June. Grow it in full sun or part shade.
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13. Phlox paniculata
‘White cultivars of phlox, with large, domed flowerheads, resemble bright white clouds at twilight in the garden, and we enjoy their soft honey fragrance,’ says Nick. Try the cultivars ‘Mount Fuji’ or ‘White Admiral’, with flowers appearing from midsummer into autumn.
14. White petunias
‘A white petunia, perhaps used as a companion to blues by day, really comes into its own at night when the broad petals capture the moonlight. Plant them en masse in containers: they appear to glow by night,’ Nick observes.
For scent lovers, roses are another must-have, but it pays to do your homework and choose your rose carefully if you want to make sure it fills your garden with fragrance - not all roses have fragrance, some are only lightly scented, while others can be sniffed out from yards away, so strong is their perfume. Rose fragrance varies hugely, too, from fruity, zesty varieties to tea, myrrh-like and musky scents.
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