Tips for aromatic team of perfumed plants

July is a month of gardening treats, visual, aromatic and gastronomic, and when the natural elements play ball by offering seemingly endless daylight and warmth, who can resist the relaxing joy of a fragrance-charged late evening walk around the plot?

- BY TOM PATTINSON

‘My Garden’ (T.E. Brown 1830-1897) encapsulates such an experience.

‘A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! Rose plot, Fringed pool, Fern’d grot -

‘The veriest school of peace; and yet the fool contends that God is not —

‘Not God! In gardens! When the eve is cool?

‘Nay, but I have a sign; ‘Tis very sure God walks in mine.’

I put the experience down to the presence of typical cottage garden plants: honeysuckle, roses, sweet peas, liliums, mock orange and night-scented stock.