If you are looking for a beautiful, early summer, late spring, fragrant flowering shrub, the Mock Orange is hard to beat. It is one of my favorite flowering shrubs. The fragrance is fairly strong, similar to the strength of lilacs. The smell is pungent and sort of sweet. We have the mock orange planted in a partial shade area. After trimming it up this past winter, it really showed it’s flowers this summer. The mock orange is about 25 feet from our bedroom window. Some evenings when the sun shines on it for a while and the wind is just right, we’ll get a nice filling aroma bringing a wonderful relaxing sensation into our small home.

There are a variety of Mock Orange that will grow in our area, so I am not sure of this exact type. It is either a:

• Philadelphus Coronarius (Sweet Mock Orange)
• Philadelphus Glacier
• Philadelphus Lewisii (Wild Mock Orange)
• Philadelphus Minnesota Snowflake
• Philadelphus Natchez
• Philadelphus Virginal

…so that really doesn’t narrow it down. According to the Sunset Western Gardener’s descriptions, I would say it’s a Philadelphus Coronarius, or the Sweet Mock Orange, due to it’s “cluster’s of flowers” and height of about 10 feet max. We have a couple others around the yard that are very small right now, but as we continue to build soil, water, and fertilize with organic options, they will begin to really grow.

Tags: coronarius, fragrant, mock, orange, Philadelphus

With the past few days in the mid to upper 80’s, everything around the yard that gets a good watering is boosting. Our first lilac flowers are beginning to show. They smell so wonderful! We have a lot of large lilac bushes around our place that are probably over 40 years old. It’s nice to walk around the yard in the early morning when the sun really begins to warm the flowers up. The fragrance is amazing. Too bad our house doesn’t always smell that nice.

Tags: fragrant, lilacs, purple