Scent is such a popular element of cut flowers that the first thing most of us do when buying a flower bouquet is smell the flowers. According to a survey, conducted by the F&PA (Flowers & Plants Association UK), over one third responded positively on the question, whether the fragrance of flowers influences their choice of flower purchase. In the following are some more interesting facts about scented flowers as researched by the F&PA.

Floral scents are one of the most popular smells, and the perfume industry expends a great deal of effort trying to reproduce the authentic fragrance of fresh flowers.

It has also been discovered that certain fragrances can have an effect on our emotions and wellbeing. The scent of orange blossom or lavender can act as a sedative, while citrus smells are great pick-me-ups.

To cultivate cut flowers that have consistent quality, long vase life, good colour, disease resistance, and the strength to grow profusely, some of the scent genes are bred out in the process. It is a side-effect of the molecular structure of flowers.

Because of this, growers and geneticists have recently started breeding more perfume back into cut flowers again. Flowers and foliage are also beginning to be graded with a scent scale, like a bottle of wine, based on strength of perfume and the type of scent - sweet, spicy, woody, exotic and so forth.

In general, white and pale flowers are particularly strongly scented, eg oriental lilies, tuberose, tazetta narcissi. Freesia are an exception to this - darker red and pink varieties have the strongest scent.

Bear in mind that a cool room is better for prolonging the life of cut flowers; but too cool a room may prevent scented flowers giving off their full perfume.

Wow! If you could just see this flower garden! And not only the use of extraordinary flowers and plants turn it into this beautiful retreat, but also the skillfull combination of different plants and the creation of a man-made creek and pond. Becky Homan writes for the Post-Dispatch about the winner of this years best flower garden.

Chip Matthews is about as proud as a man can be as he stands among the flowers and plants of his garden in Olivette. His efforts, along with those of Rex Rieger, of the Fenton-based landscaping company bearing his name, won them first place in the category of “Best Amateur Garden With Professional Help” in the 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch Great Garden Contest.

Just over here, he gestures, are three small, weeping mounds of Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) of red or green cut-leaf varieties. They’re planted far enough apart to define a broad triangle of massed plantings that edge his naturalistic swimming pool and fill gaps between his tons of Missouri stone.

Meanwhile, over there are purple spires of aromatic Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) mixed with all manner of brightly colored coneflower, coreopsis and yarrow, soft sweeps of grasses (Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’) and more purple spikes, this time of betony (Stachys macrantha ‘Superba’). They give other sun-washed boulders a look of rock-garden glam.

And behind those gardens is yet another intricate feature - a long, deep man-made creek and pond, complete with tall stands of arrowhead plant (Sagittaria latifolia) that give the pond’s Missouri-native water lilies (Nymphaea odorata) a run for their money.

“I had just wanted a beautiful rose garden,” says Chip, of the space that was once a tennis court. That was when he and his wife, Muffy, bought the house, in 1976.

But they soon learned that an advantage to keeping their old court was that their daughter, Marka, could learn to play tennis there. She did. Eventually, when she moved away from home, the couple had room to work on a wonderful new garden project together.

“It’s a wow garden,” says contest founder and judge Ken Miller. “It has very impressive pools, and there are lots of beautiful plant combinations. And because of the maturity of the plants, it all reads very well.

“I loved the texture and interplay,” he added, “of how the water really enlivened the plantings.”

Those are the kind of comments that Muffy likes to hear.

“I wanted an ocean,” she says brightly as she sits on her patio, holding a mug of fresh coffee on an unusually cool summer day. “I wanted the greatest amount of water that could fit into our backyard.

“I don’t even care if I get in the pool,” she adds. “I love it, visually.”

All of this garden work started in 1997, with Chip arranging to have the tennis court torn out, the pool dug and all of that soil mounded along the sides to build berms. Back then, Chip also still was lobbying for the kind of garden his grandfather once tended, “a big peony and English rose garden,” he says.

“Ugh!” Muffy says. “That’s too much trouble.”

Sketches, drawings and bargaining sessions ensued.

Muffy succeeded in getting the pool that reminds her of their place in Florida. And Chip gave up on his roses to argue for an adjacent pond stocked with fish and plants. “Oh my gosh, I don’t want any squirming snakes,” Muffy told him. “Now,” she adds, “the pond is my favorite thing.”

But so are the 250 tons of granite and limestone. She and Chip selected many of the boulders individually.

Chip, on the other hand, worked alone with landscaper Rieger to lay out lots of ‘Green Velvet’ and ‘Green Gem’ boxwoods, butterfly bushes, Carolina Allspice, Virginia sweetspire and other shrubs that add the kind of low-maintenance structure and interest to this garden that the occasional white-flowering kousa dogwood and stewartia tree also do.

A guesthouse facing the pond and pool also is the Matthews’ pride and joy, as is the fact that all components of their backyard were stunners on the Missouri Botanical Garden’s home tour a year ago. “This garden is a garden to be shared,” Muffy says.

Chip, who owns a business that makes braces and prosthetic devices, agrees. He guides visitors up to the highest point on the berms, turns them back toward the garden and beams about his “cascade of color and cascade of green. I hate to come home for lunch,” he adds, “because I won’t want to leave the garden.”

Summer will be over before we know it, so it’s time to prepare your flowers for the fall. Here is a very informative article about how to get the most from your flowers by Kelly Heidbreder from The Toledo Blade:

I always thought my grandma was talking about me when she said “I’ll give you a pinch to grow an inch!” But now I realize she was talking about her mums. If you pinch mums back, they will grow more branches at the pinching point and give you more blooms.

Charles Behnke, Ohio State University extension agent, says garden mums will give a late-summer and fall landscape a blast of color that will last until the first hard frost.

Most mums are easy keepers, thriving year after year without much help. But if you want to see the colorful flowers, you have to prevent them from falling over. To do that, you need to do some pinching. It is easy, but it takes some time, especially if you have a lot of mums.

Nip off the ends of each branch, leaving only a couple of shoots behind. The branches should be about three or four inches long when you are done. OSU says most chrysanthemums will grow more branches from the pinched end, and more branches mean more flowers. Keep pinching off new growth until about August. Then let the plants fill with buds that will start bursting in the fall.

If you look back in your high school yearbook, that might be a huge mum on your lapel for the homecoming dance. The National Chrysanthemum Society says mums are the most widely grown pot plants in the country and the longest-lasting cut flowers.

You could plant the landscape in front of your house with nothing but mums and it would be packed. The chrysanthemum society says mums are related to dahlias, sunflowers, marigolds, zinnias, and cosmos. Not all of them look like a huge yellow football on your shoulder. Even the beginning gardener can spot those classic up-curved petals on a Bola de Oro or Bob Dear. Other varieties, such as Crimson Glory, look like daisies. Many mums have bright petal colors.

Anemones have tight middles, and little daisy petals around the edges. Seatons Toffee is a beautiful salmon-colored quill mum. Its petals look like tubes coming out of the center of the flower. And most formal flower arrangements contain a few spider mums.

If you are purely looking for colors, Mr. Behnke recommends Encore, Illusion, or Nicole for white mums; Donna, Goldmine, or Target for yellow varieties; Debonair, Stardom, or Sundoro in pink, and Ginger, Triumph, Bravo, or Remarkable in the bronze or red range that will grow well in southeast Michigan and northwest Ohio.

If you plant new mums every year, plant them only as deep as they were in the container. Water them well and top them off with a dash of slow-release fertilizer. Feed mums, but not with lawn fertilizer. Look for a bag that has a low first number (nitrogen). Something like a 5-20-20 will add more phosphorus and potassium to help the roots and flowers more than the foliage. Once the mums start to bud in July, stop fertilizing them.

Enjoy the burst of color in the fall landscape, but be aware that the first hard frost often turns mums black. Most growers’ garden or patio mums usually flower year after year, depending on the landscape conditions. A bit of protection gives them a better chance of survival.

To help them get through the colder months, chop off the dead tops and cover the base with about four inches of mulch. This will make them more likely to greet you again next year, ready for a pinch.