30 JUNE 1973, Page 14

'Gardening

Leaf scent

Denis Wood

Years agO, in the library at Kew, I got hold of a book, The Scent of Flowers and Leaves by F. A. Hampton, published by Dulau in 1925, and now I suppose long out of print but available in libraries. This set me off on the scent of leaves which has a quite different quality from ordinary flower scent, being harsher, more astringent, less sweet, not at all senti mental, but refreshing and of very wide variety.

The best known scented leafed geranium is probably the old Pheasant's Foot, Pelargonium denticulatum,, which has deeply cut rough leaves, generally lemon scented, but with darker undertones of eucalyptus and camphor and even, I sometimes think, half a whiff of paraffin. It is a good plant to put out in the summer and mixes well with the usual run of summer bedding, stocks, heliotropes, tobacco plants, and it takes much of the heat out of the brightest geraniums. A friend once told me that it was known in his family as the water-closet geranium because a plant of it was always to be found in the lavatory in his grandmother's house.

Clorinda is a rose-scentedleafed geranium with quite large cerise single flowers, It is fast growing, in a few weeks adopting a trailing habit and very becoming in a vase, preferably above eyelevel. The true rose-scented geranium is P. capitatum, tending to be erect growing up to about 3 ft leaves.

,A good carpeter is Moore's Vic-'

tory, with reasonably large crimson flowers and rose-scented foliage. Peppermint is unmistakable in the large, hairy leaves of Pelargonium tomentosum, which also has a procumbent habit of growth and is useful at the corners of beds against paving. Pelargonium fragrans is a much smaller, rather prim little plant with grey-green leaves, nutmeg scented. It makes an elegant edge to a border for the summer. All these originated from the Cape and are not hardy throughout the year in England. They can be preserved quite easily in a greenhouse from which the frost can just be kept out and they are easily propagated in August or September from three-to fourinch stems cut below a joint and put round the edge of a pot two inches deep in John lnnes potting compost. They can be transferred to larger pots in the spring.

The best of all leaf scent is that of the lemon verbena, a doubtfully hardy plant which first came here from Chile about 1784. This is a rapid grower, has light green, rather rough textured leaves which smell strongly and deliciously of lemon when pinched. Good cooks are said to put a leaf of it in the bottom of a tin before baking a cake. With me in the South of England, it proves to be hardy in nine years out of ten. My own plants on either side of the door from the sitting room into the garden are now 8 ft high; any dead wood which there may be, but there has not been any in the last two years, is cut out in April. There is no need to worry much about casualties because a plant grows so quickly that a fresh one put in in April will get to 6 ft the following year.