Fragrant Hostas Worth Planting Near Your Patio

Almost nobody buys a hosta for its flowers. The leaves are the reason the genus is popular, and the bloom stalks are often cut off before they open. A small branch of the family is the exception. Those cultivars produce large white trumpets that open in the evening and carry a strong sweet scent, and they are worth a spot within a few steps of where you sit outside.

Where Hosta Fragrance Comes From

Nearly all of it traces back to one species. Hosta plantaginea, the August lily, is native to China and grows one to two feet tall and three to four feet wide, with glossy lime green heart shaped leaves. The flowers run three to six inches long on scapes up to 30 inches, and They are among the best in the genus for showiness and scent. They open in the late afternoon or evening.

Fragrance reached garden hostas through breeding. If a cultivar smells like anything, plantaginea is somewhere in its parentage. That ancestry brings something else along with it: the species is the most heat and sun tolerant hosta there is, and it will grow in anything from shade up to three quarters of a day of sun. The scented cultivars inherit some of that, which is useful, because the ground near a patio is usually brighter than the beds hostas normally occupy.

Cultivars That Carry the Scent

Hosta plantaginea itself is sold under the name August lily and is still the standard. The flowers are the largest and the most strongly scented of anything here, and the lime green foliage looks different enough from a typical hosta to be worth having on its own.

‘Aphrodite’ is a double flowered form of the species. The flowers are intensely fragrant. The doubling makes each bloom fuller and slower to open than the single form.

‘Honeybells’ grows 18 to 24 inches tall with light green, strongly veined leaves and pale lavender tinted flowers around the middle of August. It is one of the older fragrant hybrids and one of the easiest to find at a garden center.

‘Royal Standard’ is a cross between Hosta plantaginea and Hosta sieboldiana. The leaves are bright green with a satiny sheen, and the white flowers open in late summer. It makes a considerably larger clump than the others on this list, so give it room.

‘Guacamole’ reaches about 18 inches, with chartreuse gold leaf centers and darker blue green margins. The near white flowers are fragrant and arrive in midsummer, earlier than the rest of the group, which is a reason to plant it alongside one of the later bloomers.

When They Bloom on the Front Range

Most of this group flowers from late August into September. ‘Guacamole’ comes earlier, in midsummer, and ‘Honeybells’ lands around mid August. The average first frost along the Front Range falls near October 15, so in a normal year the whole fragrant stretch finishes with a few weeks to spare. An early cold snap in September can cut it short.

Time of day matters as much as the calendar. The flowers open in the late afternoon and evening, and that is when the scent is strongest. If the only time you pass that bed is on the way to the car at eight in the morning, you will not smell much. These plants pay off for people who sit outside after dinner.

Placing Them Where the Scent Reaches You

Plant them within about six feet of where people actually sit, stand, or walk past. The edge of a patio or deck works. So does the base of a set of steps, either side of a back door, or the strip along the path from the driveway. Patios, walkways, and small spaces are the natural fit for the species.

Distance does more than quantity here. Ten plants at the back of a border will do less for you than two at the edge of a seating area. Space them one to three feet apart, and the fragrant types run toward the wide end of that range, so plan for the mature clump rather than the pot you bought.

Still air also helps. A sheltered corner between a house wall and a fence holds scent much better than an open, breezy patio, and the same shelter keeps dry Front Range wind off the leaves.

Containers, Paving, and Reflected Heat

Patio planting puts these hostas next to hard surfaces that absorb heat all day and give it back after dark. Light colored stucco or brick on a south or west wall is the hardest version of this. The fragrant cultivars take more sun than most hostas, but reflected heat on top of direct July afternoon sun is a different load, and the leaf margins will brown. Keep the plant a couple of feet off the wall, or choose a spot the house shades from early afternoon on.

Containers work well and lift the flowers closer to nose height. Hostas need an inch or more of water a week, and plants in sun, in heat, or competing with tree roots need more than that. A pot sitting on flagstone in August can want water every day. Use a container with enough volume for a mature clump rather than a shallow bowl, and remember that a pot left outside freezes through in a way a garden bed does not, so it will need to be sunk in a bed or moved against the house for winter.

Once the bloom is finished, cut the flower stalk down. Do it so the plant puts its energy into leaves and roots instead of seed. For siting, soil preparation, and what else belongs in a bed near the house, the shade gardening on the Front Range guides cover the rest.