Grow Your Own Potpourri?

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal provides tips for making your own:

In fact, the garden is a perfect place to start in thinking about fragrances for the house. Potpourri today is largely a failure of the imagination: rose and lavender. ("Vapourri," or sprays, and plug-in air fresheners are also big on things like "pound cake," popular with the diet-weakened.)

But if you have a space to grow, why not begin in the garden, in conceiving original dried blends: meadowsweet, verbena, bergamot, gardenia, tuberose, thyme, honeysuckle, sage and violet. The list goes on. A variety of mint: orange, blackberry, apple, pineapple, chocolate, in addition to peppermint.

Scented geraniums like rose, lime and nutmeg; grasses like gingergrass, lemongrass and vetiver. There are 400 kinds of artemisia, including southernwood and tarragon, all pungent, and ready to plant. And fragrant ingredients to gather too: oak moss, cedar and bamboo. (If Antoine Du Piney de Noroy, writing in an herbal published in 1561, thought stuff like this could cure hair loss, how hard could scenting your home be?) (Read the entire article.)

The article includes recommendations for collecting and combining ingredients to obtain balanced, pleasing scents.

Of course, one will have to remember that this article was not written with our subtropical climate in mind. At one point, he recommends gathering herbs on warm, dry days. While our climate here near the gulf coast enjoys plenty of warmth, dryness is a bit rare in this part of the atmosphere. However, with our almost constant use of air conditioning keeping our indoor humidity down, it is still possible to dry plants indoors during more humid seasons.

It is also important to check the watering and soil requirements of the plants listed in this article before using them. Gardenias, for example, are best planted in very high raised beds with acidic soil, as our local soil is alkaline.  Local gardening expert Randy Lemmon finds Gardenias to be so high maintenance in this region,  I have heard him suggest not planting them at all on his radio show. Many people find bamboo is a little too happy here, and have difficulty getting rid of it after they plant it.

The good news is, Many fragrant herbs do quite well here, especially in slightly raised beds and containers.  As citrus is very popular in Houston area gardens, those who like the scents of orange and lemon peels should be able to make use of those when the fruits are in season. It may even be worth experimenting with citrus blossoms, if one's trees will still produce sufficient fruit even after the loss of a few flowers. 

So, if you are looking for a natural and fun way to scent your house, this could be a fun and useful experiement! Ask around at your nearest locally-owned nursery, and see what fragrant plants they stock that you might be able to use for potpourri.

Trowel Tip to: Elena Maria Vidal of Tea at Trianon.