14 Best Fragrant Flowering Shrubs

Gardeners love their long blooming shrubs to help maintain blooming color all season long. But when selecting your flowering shrubs, also consider fragrance.

Position shrubs with lovely scents where you will enjoy them most.

Ideal places for scented shrubs are near entryways, patios and decks, garden paths, and benches.

There are of course many fragrant flowering shrubs, some hardy and some not so hardy. Some are lightly scented, some sweet, some spicy or musky.

Roses quickly come to mind, but not all are scented! Also, not all roses are easy to grow so be sure you investigate care and maintenance.

Then of course there are non-blooming fragrant shrubs. We certainly can’t leave out the highly aromatic foliage of lavender! The fragrance is not emitted by the lavender flowers, but from the foliage.

Following are some of gardener’s all-time favorite fragrant flowering shrubs.

1. Abelia

If you love the fragrance of tropical Jasmine, you will also enjoy the jasmine like scent of Abelia abelia chinensis.

‘Sweet Emotion’ with white and pink blooms is the most fragrant with excellent hardiness to zone 4.

‘Ruby Anniversary’ is also quite enchanting but only hardy to zone 5.

2. Buttonbush

Buttonbush is a fragrant native in the Upper Midwest that is great for naturalizing. Although not generally grown for beauty, one cultivar is quite compact and lovely.

‘Sugar Shack’ Buttonbush is covered with globes of tiny flowers producing a heavenly honey fragrance.

3. Daphne

A couple of Daphne cultivars produce highly fragrant blooms. Carol Mackie, Daphne x burkwoodii Carol Mackie, is a nice compact 3-foot shrub with clusters of pale pink scented flowers.

Briggs Moonlight is very similar but a bit smaller. Additionally, both have interesting variegated foliage.

4. Elderberry

Elderberry Sambucus nigra are an interesting contradiction of scent.

Beautiful ‘Black Beauty’ and ‘Black Lace’ Elderberry are grown as interesting ornamental shrubs with purple-pink bloom clusters contrasting the deep foliage.

And the blooms are used to sweetly perfume beverages with anise scent. But the foliage, hmm, a pungent funky smell.

I personally don’t notice unless I’m pruning, but the flower aromas will float in the air.

5. Gardenia

Arguably one of the most beautiful and fragrant shrubs, Gardenia love to grow in warm humid regions.

Northern Regions and most of the Midwest need to enjoy it as an annual or bring it inside to over winter.

But there is one somewhat cold-tolerant variety. ‘Summer Snow’ Gardenia tolerates the winters of zone 6.

6. Honeysuckle

The sweet lemony fragrance of Honeysuckle Lonicera is so intoxicating. Honeysuckle takes form in both shrub and vine so be careful with your selections. They are all quite hardy, zone 4 tolerant.

‘Winter’ Honeysuckle and ‘Sakhalin’ are extra hardy shrub choices for the North and Midwest.

The prettiest Honeysuckle vines are ‘Japanese’ Honeysuckle, a hardy choice for the north, and ‘Trumpet’ Honeysuckle for the more moderate climates of the South East.

7. Korean Spice Viburnum

The flower clusters of Korean Spice are so sweet the common name for this viburnum is Fragrant Spicebush.

A reliable bloomer reaching up to 6 feet tall, Korean Spice is hardy to zone 4 at least. Great fall foliage color is an added bonus.

8. Lilac

There are many varieties of lilac (syringa), some more fragrant than others. But a few might be considered top performers not just for their intoxicating spring fragrance, but for the reliability of quality blooms and long life.

The common lilac, S. vulgaris, can’t be beat for the very best fragrance but can get very large. Left unpruned they can reach 20 feet tall.

Miss Kim, S. pubescens subsp. patula Miss Kim, has a superb compact rounded form.

And Bloomerang, S. x Bloomerang, is also compact and will bloom a second time in very late autumn where the growing season is long enough.

Lilacs are generally very hardy and easy to grow.

9. Magnolia

There are a variety of magnolia with varying degrees of hardiness and not all are fragrant. And, yes, they generally get quite large and truly are a small tree in some cases.

But if you do have the space for a very large shrub, some are even hardy in northern regions.

‘Royal Star’ can sport white or pink blooms and should keep to about 15 to 20 feet tall.

‘Butterflies’ will be about the same size and survived my zone 4 beautifully. Although often “Butterflies’ will have a light lemony scent, not all do and mine did not.

‘Black Tulip’ has dramatic deep red blooms are highly fragrant and should thrive in warmer regions of zone 4.

10. Mock Orange

The commonly grown Philadelphus coronarius is known for its’ sweet orange blossom scent. But the hybrid Buckley’s Quill may be a superior performer with lovely double white blooms.

Both are hardy, easy to grow, and reach 8 to 10 feet tall. ‘Snowflake’ is a lovely little dwarf with fragrant double flowers.

11. Summersweet

This oh-so-easy summer flowering shrub fills your mid-summer gardens with spicy sweet aromas. Clethra alnifolia performs well and shade and is hardy to zone 4.

Be sure to check specific cultivar details, they can vary in size but the newer cultivars are pretty compact. Although they are all fragrant, some are exceptional.

Look for ‘Sugartina’, ‘Hummingbird’, ‘Ruby Spice’, ‘Crystalina’ and ‘Vanilla Spice’.

12. Sweetshrub

Known by so many “fragrant names” Sweetshrub calycanthus is a gardener favorite.

Common names include Carolina allspice, pineapple shrub, strawberry shrub and even sweet Betty, gardeners seem to call it whatever the fragrance brings to mind.

Decide for yourself! Pineapple? Bananas?

The scent does change as the deep red blooms mature from spring through summer. ‘Aphrodite’ is a popular six-foot variety.

13. Sweetspire

A lovely compact shrub with sweet scented blooms in summer. Hardy to zone 5, Sweetspire Itea virginica also boasts wonderful red purple fall color.

Very tolerant of shade but blooms best with at least four hours of sun.

‘Scentlandia’ is one of the most fragrant and ‘Little Henry” is a compact gardener favorite.

14. Wax Leaf Privet

The privet has been widely known as a hedge plant rather than a fragrant flowering shrub. When allowed to mature it develops large clusters of white blooms bearing the fragrance of spring.

HOWEVER, if you select the wrong privet it will aggressively take over gardens. Be sure to select the Wax Leaf Japanese privet, Ligustrum Japonicum. Look for the cultivar ‘Texanum’.

And don’t forget to browse the Rose Index for easy-to-grow fragrant landscape roses.