Fragrant herb leaves have been around for centuries. The aroma of many different herbs were used to eliminate odors from castles, hospitals, and churches. Herbs were used before the concept of sanitation was discovered. Many housewives would scatter the herbs around the floor. They also took and made sachets and put them in closets to alleviate odors. Many years ago this became a challenge and a reward for these ladies to create their own secret recipes. All of these women took a lot of pride in the results. One of the first and still most aroma herb used was the rose. Many of the old variety of roses are still used today. The Cabbage rose has a very rich smell to it. The Aroma herbs were used in Europe and many warm climate countries. In the late 1700's, Mexico exported Lemon Verbena was to England. People began realizing you could use many different garden plants that provided a wide range of aromas.

Today, herbs are fast becoming one of the most popular plant specimens around the world. There are thousands of different species available in so many different climate zones. Herbs are used not only for culinary purposes, but also incorporated in dry or moist potpourris. Many essential oils and fixatives are commercially and homemade used to flavor a potpourri. A fixative is used to hold the fragrance of all the ingredients. An essential oil will evaporate into the air and create a fragrant in a room. I wanted to share with you some different herbs and what plants have great smelling leaves and flowers. Here are a few herbs that have fragrant leaves.

• Lavender
• Bay
• Lemon Balm
• Lemon Thyme
• Lemon Geranium
• Lemon Verbena
• Thyme
• Mint
• Oregano
• Rosemary
• Sweet Basil
• Sweet Marjoram
• Geranium
• Sweet Woodruff
• Tarragon

Any one of these herbs can be planted in container gardens or outside in the ground. In the examples of landscape designs there is a complete herbal design with some fragrant herbs.

The flowers of Lavender, Roses, and Chamomile also provide a wonderful aroma. In the theme color garden section, there is a page on on a color base garden with herbs that will give you more ideas for using color as well as smell in your landscape or containers.

There are also seeds and spices that create a wonderful aroma for your house or outdoors. Allspice, Calamus Root, Cloves, Cinnamon sticks, and myrrh are a few spices that can be used fresh or dried. Anise and Corriander are a couple of seeds that provide a great aroma.

Herbs provide us with so many different possibilities. I have grown thousands of seeds in a greenhouse and have used so many of these herbs in gardens and dried sachets and potpourri. Below is a simple recipe for doing a potpourri.

Take around sixteen Lavender flowers, add two ounces of Sweet Woodruff, one and half ounces Thyme, eight ounces of orange peel, and four ounces of benzoin. Benzoin is extracted from the bark of many ornamental Styrax trees. You can purchase Benzoin in specialty stores. Combine some other flowers such as violets and cornflower. To top this potpourri off, add one fourth ounce of cloves. This makes a wonderful potpourri or for a sachet in a closet. Do you have a recipe of dried or fresh herbs you would like to share with us? Feel free to share you recipe so others can enjoy the fragrance in their homes.