These plants help to stimulate the senses within a small space. The Elaeagnus and Phlox provide summer scent from fragrant flowers, while the Caryopteris, Salvia, Agastache and Nepeta add scent through aromatic foliage, especially when touched. The highly perfumed Elaeagnus flowers in late autumn.

Most of the plants will also attract pollinators, helping to increase garden biodiversity.   

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

Using an organic mulch, preferably homemade compost, while the plants establish can help to provide the same benefits. Mulches should be spread when the soil is already moist to help trap some of that moisture before it dries out in summer. 
 

1 - Caryopteris × clandonensis 'Heavenly Blue'

2 - Elaeagnus x submacrophylla 

3 - Salvia ‘Blue Spire’

4 - Agastache ‘Blackadder’

5 - Nepeta ‘Summer Magic’

6 - Phlox divaricata ‘Clouds of Perfume’

Deciduous refers to plants (mainly trees and shrubs) that lose their leaves seasonally, usually during autumn. This is a natural process triggered by the season's shorter days and lower temperatures and allows plants to conserve energy during the winter months.

deciduous

2 - Elaeagnus x submacrophylla is an evergreen shrub with leathery, metallic sea-green leaves, silvery beneath, and small, intensely fragrant flowers in autumn. 

3 - Salvia ‘Blue Spire’ is a deciduous sub-shrub with white stems bearing aromatic grey-green leaves. It has large, plumy heads of small violet-blue flowers in late summer and autumn. 

4 - Agastache ‘Blackadder’ is a herbaceous

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.

5 - Nepeta grandiflora ‘Summer Magic’ is a deciduous perennial with aromatic, grey-green leaves and densely clustered, violet-blue flowers carried on spikes from summer into early autumn. 

6 - Phlox divaricata ‘Clouds of Perfume’ is a semi-evergreen perennial with spreading stems, hairy oval leaves and loose clusters of fragrant, pale lavender-blue flowers in early summer.