Fragrant Flowers For your Garden
Fragrant Flowers For your Garden
If you are considering building an outdoor temple for fairies, nature sprits or your gods here are some ideas of what fragrant vines you could use. These three climbing plants are ideal for any special outdoor area but we have chosen them for the aroma that their flowers produce. Scent can be a powerful tool for creating doorways into the other worlds and if you keep this in mind while building your sacred space outdoors you can create something truly magickal. Remember if you dedicate an outdoor space for a specific god or spirit you must not use the plants that are in that area for your own purposes, because it would be like taking offerings off their altar.
Wisteria
Wisteria was introduced to the west from China in 1860, it is a very romantic plant and creates the best outdoor spaces and temples when grown over a frame to create a canopy of pendulous mauve, pink or white flowers. Fairies love it and it would also be appropriate to use for any goddess of love. Wisteria is very beautiful and smells beautiful too but it can be very messy when it sheds its flowers, so if you have an altar under it you will need to clear it of a layer of wilting petals when it sheds.
Be firm with wisteria; provide it with solid support because in most conditions it will become quickly rampant and it’s wood becomes heavy. With perseverance it can be trained to grow as a standing tree. You have to be patient when waiting for wisteria to flower as sometimes it can take a few years for it to get established enough to produce an abundance of flowers, but well worth the wait.
Hoya
Hoya is a tropical plant native to Australia, the Pacific Islands, India, China and Bornio. The delicate vines offer tiny posies of flowers which are thick and glistening, giving them the popular name of ‘wax plants’; the perfume is like honey and one plant will perfume an entire conservatory.
Hoyas need a minimum winter temperature of 14°C (58°F), so if you live in a cooler climate this plant my not be appropriate for a permanent outdoor temple. You may wish to grow it in a pot to put on a fairy alter indoors. The dwarf varieties are a popular indoor plant; they need well draining soil and actually prefer to be pot-bound. The flowers on this vine are just so unusual and beautiful that they have been described as ‘jewels of the air’. Another place this vine grows well is under shelter outside in a warm dry place, so if you want to make a space for an altar on your porch or veranda, a couple of these growing next to it would be divine when it is flowing.
Honeysuckle
Honeysuckle is a perfect vine for covering ugly fences and sheds, it is a nice thing to have in your garden if you have children, as they like to suck the honey from the tubes. The scent of honeysuckle attracts fairies into your garden. There are many varieties of honeysuckle so make sure you get a scented one before purchasing. You may not wish to dedicate this plant to a specific deity as it is useful for a lot of things such as protection and to attract money, the flowers last well in vases indoors and heavily perfume the air.
Cheers
Brad & Saskia
