If you want to treat your senses with lovely scents, this article lists some of the Best Fragrant Vines you can grow.
Vines and climbers do wonders in sprucing up dull walls, empty fences, bare pathways, and barren entrances. Hence, we’ve curated a selection of plants that produce beautiful blooms and the sweetest scents while climbing up. Check out our list of the best fragrant vines for your garden!
Best Fragrant Vines
1. Sweet Peas
Botanical Name: Lathyrus odoratus
USDA Zones: 2-11
Native to Italy, sweet peas are annual climbers perfect for adding sweet citrus, floral notes, and lots of color to your surroundings. You can also use them as cut flowers; just a few will fill your room with their sweet fragrance.
Sweet pea vine prefers bright sun, afternoon shade, and moist soil. Despite its edible name, its seeds are toxic.
2. Star Jasmine
Botanical Name: Trachelospermum jasminoides
USDA Zones: 7-10
Native to eastern Asia, star jasmine is a woody, evergreen vine with dark green leaves and a strong aroma with hints of honey and vanilla. Mid-spring, it produces clusters of star-shaped white blooms.
This vigorous climber does well in full sun and afternoon shade and will quickly blanket a bare, sunny wall. To keep it under control, prune regularly, and look out for sticky sap from stems when you do trim.
3. Honeysuckle
Botanical Name: Lonicera
USDA Zones: 4-9
Honeysuckle vines are hardy climbers that produce intensely fragrant, nectar-filled tubular blooms in spring and summer. Its flowers carry an aroma that is a mix of jasmine with hints of vanilla, and its nectar attracts hummingbirds.
Although invasive, this prolific climber is popularly used to cover dull walls and empty patches. Grow your honeysuckles in moist but free-draining soil where they get partial shade.
4. Clematis
Botanical Name: Clematis montana
USDA Zones: 6-9
This vigorous, fragrant vine is ideal for covering unsightly walls and fences. It can also beautify pergolas and trellis with its eye-catching flowers. Clematis blooms from late spring to early summer and emits a nutty fragrance, much like almonds. Certain varieties, like Sweet Autumn and Montana, smell like vanilla and chocolate.
While this vine tolerates shade, for best blooms, grow in full sun, but remember to keep its roots moist and cool.
5. Chocolate Vine
Botanical Name: Akebia quinata
USDA Zones: 5-8
Chocolate Vine has maroon-chocolate flowers with hints of vanilla and chocolate scents. This drought-tolerant vigorous vine will quickly cover a sunny wall or empty fence, but remember to prune it, as it can colonize other vegetation.
While it tolerates shade and wet soil, it prefers warmth and sun and grows well in sandy to loamy soil. This woody vine may also surprise you in hot summers with sausage-shaped fruits.
6. Jasmine
Botanical Name: Jasminum
USDA Zones: 7-10
Deep, floral, and musky, fragrant jasmine blooms are best for soothing your senses from mid-summer to early fall. Grow this vine with climbing roses or honeysuckle for an inebriating fusion of fragrances.
Jasmines need fertile, well-drained soil and full sun with dappled shade to produce the best blooms and aromas.
7. Japanese Wisteria
Botanical Name: Wisteria floribunda ‘Multijuga’
USDA Zones: 4-9
Perfect for sturdy arbors, trellises, fences, and long walls, this variety can be easily trained to take the form you desire. It can even be grown as a shrub or tree–just like these plants. Said to be the most spectacular variety, the Japanese wisteria produces lightly-scented drooping racemes of pink, lilac, and white blooms.
However, this variety is high maintenance and needs acidic, fertile, well-draining soil and full sun to thrive. Less vigorous than its cousins, you can grow it around your house without fear of damage.
8. Rambling Rose
Botanical Name: Rosa ‘Albertine’
USDA Zones: 5-9 (?)
The rambling rose is a magnificent cross between the vigorous trailing species Rosa ‘lucieae’ and hybrid tea roses. Producing fluffy, fruity-scented, salmon-pink blooms in clusters once a year in late spring, this variety can grow up to 20 feet tall.
Perfect for pergolas and large structures, it can also be trained to grow as a small tree. It mostly tolerates all soil types but needs full to partial sun. Follow these tips for the most fragrant roses.
9. Purple Passionflower
Botanical Name: Passiflora incarnata
USDA Zones: 6-10
This fast-growing, hardy climber produces stunning lilac blooms with sharp, earthy, sweet scents. Growing up to 25 feet, it also bears edible yellowish-orange fruits that “pop” when stepped upon–hence the name Maypop!
Growing well on trellises and pergolas, this variety thrives in full to part sun and organic-rich, well-draining sandy, loamy, and clay soils. If you love passionflower vines, check out these varieties for your garden.
10. Mandevilla
Botanical Name: Mandevilla spp.
USDA Zones: 9-11
Mandevilla is a sun-loving tropical vine that produces showy, trumpet-shaped, five-petaled blooms from late spring to fall. Emerging in red, white, pink, and yellow, these flowers attract hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies and emit a sweet floral, vanilla scent with citrus notes.
Preferring slightly acidic to alkaline, well-draining soil rich in organic matter, mandevilla needs at least six hours of direct sunlight to thrive.
11. Chinese Wisteria
Botanical Name: Wisteria sinensis
USDA Zones: 5-9
This is a deciduous woody vine in the Fabaceae (bean) family native to China. It grows rapidly and is often considered invasive. But with regular pruning, it produces cascading clusters of bluish-purple blooms with a sweet, grape-like fragrance, which makes it worth it!
It prefers well-drained, fertile soil and full sun. Grow it in abandoned spaces where it won’t threaten your existing vegetation.
12. Rangoon Creeper
Botanical Name: Combretum indicum
USDA Zones: 10-11
Rangoon Creeper is a beautiful flowering vine native to tropical Asia. This woody climber produces decorative clusters of tiny flowers that bloom at dusk. The nectar-filled blooms turn from white to pink and red over a few days, filling the air with a sweet and fruity fragrance.
13. Crossvine
Botanical Name: Bignonia capreolata
USDA Zones: 5-9
Native to the southeastern US, crossvines are vigorous climbers with pleasantly fragrant bell-shaped blooms in orange, red, and yellow. Regardless of the color, the flowers have a pleasant, sweet scent.
This plant needs full sun and moist, well-drained, acidic soil to produce the best blooms from late winter to early spring.
14. Madagascar Jasmine
Botanical Name: Stephanotis floribunda
USDA Zones: 9b-12
The Madagascar jasmine is a pretty climber with glossy green leaves and clusters of white, star-shaped flowers. The blooms give off a sweet and strong scent reminiscent of jasmine. This vine loves bright, direct light and regular watering.
15. Frangipani Vine
Botanical Name: Chonemorpha fragrans
USDA Zones: 9-11
Frangipani vines are vigorous climbers with big, shiny leaves and beautiful pink and red-tinged white flowers with yellow centers. They have a creamy, delicious scent similar to that of their namesake, the Frangipani tree. The best part is that they flower for months on end.
