14 Fragrant Pastel Annuals To Give Your Containers A Touch Of Romance This Spring

Many flower enthusiasts consider spring their favorite season in the garden: there are so many early blooming bulbs and colorful perennials to enjoy. Once spring perennials like peonies have faded, annual flowers are a reliable way to keep the garden full of color through summer. But there's another quality many spring-planted annuals have that is sometimes overlooked: Fragrance! Adding some fragrant annuals in delicate pastel colors to your containers adds beauty and a touch of romance to your container arrangements.

Pastel-hued flowers in containers are not only attractive on their own, but add striking contrast when mixed with darker or brighter colors. Pastel flowers add a feeling of softness to flower beds or container. Their delicate hues, reminiscent of the gardens of Impressionist painters, are soothing to the eye, and are less stimulating than more vivid colors like red or bright yellow. Floral designers use pastel flowers to invoke feelings of tranquility, nostalgia, romance, and simplicity. 

Just as pastel hues are associated with nostalgia, so are fragrant flowers. Gardeners are aware that newer hybrid versions of many flowers are not the perfumed varieties of yesteryear (many new rose varieties have very little fragrance). Luckily, fragrance in flowers is making a comeback and newer cultivars are being developed by breeders who know that scent is a sought-after quality. There are a number of romantic, fragrant pastel annuals you can choose for long-lasting blooms from spring into summer, including sweet alyssum, stock, verbena, petunias, heliotrope, and more.

Sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima) flowers are easy to grow from seed, and widely available for purchase as spring annuals. True to their name, these diminutive flowers have a honey-like floral fragrance that attracts pollinators. The small clumps have wavy stems topped with flowerheads that tuck nicely into containers. They come in a range of colors from white to dark purple, with some lovely pastel colors including rose, lilac, and pink, as well as a new variety called 'Summer Peaches' that is a pale apricot color. Plant these tiny, beautiful flowers with petunias for the sweetest-smelling containers imaginable.

The blue lace flower (Didiscus caeruleus) is a fragrant annual with pom-pom like flowerheads composed of tiny flowers, and is a popular choice for bouquets. The most common variety is a fetching shade of pale periwinkle blue. These heirloom beauties attract pollinators and add a delicate texture to containers. Try 'Lacy Lavender Blue' for classic pale blue flowers. There are also seed mixes with pastel colors like 'Didiscus Lace Mix' which has pale pink, pale blue, and white flowers, or the 'Madonna Blend' which has hues of pale pink and lavender.

Stock flowers (Matthiola incana) come in a rainbow of lovely colors and have a gentle, clove-like fragrance that is somewhat old-fashioned yet utterly charming. They grow between 12 and 36 inches tall, but some smaller varieties like 'Cinderella' are perfect for containers. Colors range from white to purple to deep crimson, and pastel shades of pink, peach, yellow, and lavender. Eden Brothers has a good selection of stock seeds in delicate hues: Try 'Apricot,' 'White Goddess,' or 'Appleblossom.' Stock performs best if the flowers are deadheaded soon after the first round of blooms; snip back the stems to encourage new buds.

Four o'clocks (Mirabilis jalapa) are colorful trumpet-shaped flowers with a bushy, dense growth habit. They're easy to grow them from seed, but wait until the consistent daytime temperature is at least 65 degrees Fahrenheit to sow seeds or transplant seedlings outside. The glossy, dark green leaves lend a tropical touch to containers, and the soft jasmine-like fragrance is strongest from afternoon to early evening. Try 'Peach Sunset' and 'Salmon Sunset' for lovely pastel hues of pink, peach, and pale orange.

Sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus) have a delicate fragrance and come in an enormous array of colors from brights to pastels. They're easy to grow from seed, and are normally planted near fences or a trellis so their slender vines can climb. There are a number of dwarf varieties with shorter vines that are perfect for spilling over the edges of containers. The Little Sweetheart mix produces shorter, bushy sweet pea plants in a range of colors including pink, rose, white, blue, and lilac, or try the dwarf sweet pea cultivar 'Bijou' in shades or purple, pink, and white.

Annual phlox (Phlox drummondii) became popular in the Victorian era, when flower breeders developed a wide range of colors. Like their stately cousins, tall perennial garden phlox, these diminutive annuals are fragrant and attract pollinators. Their rich hues are great for containers, from dainty pastels to rich shades of pink, purple, peach, and red, and intriguing bi-colors like 'Blueberry Swirl' (pale and dark violet-blue), 'Phlox of Sheep' (pink, coral, apricot) and 'Creme Brulee' (pale caramel with pink accents). They bloom all season with a bit of deadheading and prefer full sun.

Heliotrope, (Heliotropium arborescens) featured in Greco-Roman mythology, meaning "turns toward the sun" after the ancient Greek sun god, Helios. This old-fashioned favorite embodies romance: In the language of flowers, it symbolizes devotion and eternal love. Heliotrope is hardy in warmer zones but is often grown as an annual. The enticing almond-vanilla fragrance was once a common perfume, and the heirloom varieties are the most fragrant, attracting many pollinators. Colors range from white to lavender to deep purple. 'Select Amaretto' is a lovely pale lilac. In containers, the sprays grow 2 to 3 feet tall, love full sun, and need well-draining soil.

Petunias are a favorite for containers: they flower continuously all season, needing only regular watering and deadheading. Heirloom petunias were once valued for their floral scent, but with new hybrids, fragrance is not always guaranteed. Some dreamy pastel hybrid beauties are fragrant, like the pale pink and white 'Appleblossom.' The Daddy series of petunias are strikingly beautiful, with frilly, veined flowers in a range of pastel pinks, reds, purples, and blues. 'Daddy Blue' is considered the most fragrant. Another particularly fragrant petunia is 'Evening Scentsation,' a gorgeous new hybrid of sky blue with a hint of violet.

Calendula are short daisy-like flowers that grow easily from seed and produce flowers continuously over a long season. They're a wonderful annual for containers and come in a range of colors, from bright yellows and oranges to pale pink, apricot, and cream (try 'Strawberry Blonde,' 'Cantaloupe Mix,' 'Pacific Apricot Beauty,' or 'Ivory Princess' for gorgeous pastel shades). Their scent is more herbaceous than floral, but pleasing all the same. The crescent shaped seeds are easy to collect in fall and save for planting the following spring. Plant seeds every two weeks for a succession of flowers.

Nemesia has small perky flowers that look a bit like small round snapdragons, which they are related to. They're a popular container annual for their long-blooming flowers in a rainbow of colors. Nemesia flowers attract many pollinators with their sweet abundant nectar; one of the most common forms available is Nemesia fruticans. The hybrids come in the widest range of colors but not all are fragrant. 'Blue Gem' is a pale powdery blue with a sweet fragrance. There are a few fragrant pink varieties including 'Aromance Pink' and 'Aromatica Rose Pink'.

Verbena is a name given to a tall, pale purple wildflower (Verbena Bonariensis), also known as purpletop vervain. But it's also the name of a long-blooming, delicately fragrant annual (Verbena hybrida). Annual verbena is delightful in containers and needs only occasional deadheading to keep blooms coming for weeks. The spectrum of colors is truly wondrous, from pale pastels to deep jewel tones, often with multiple hues on one flower. Some beautiful pastel verbena varieties are 'Pink Cashmere' (shades of pale pink), 'Peachy Keen' (shades of coral and peach), and 'Sparkling Amethyst' (pale purple shades).

The pincushion flower (Scabiosa atropurpurea) is a flat-top flower with dainty stamens that attract many pollinators. It's sometimes grown as a cottage garden perennial, but as a long-bloomer, it works very nicely as an annual container flower also. You can sow the seeds in spring after danger of frost is past. Scabiosa likes mid-range temperatures from warm to cool, and doesn't flourish in extreme cold or heat. There's a wide range of pastel colors: 'Oxford Blue' is a fetching shade of periwinkle, 'Pink Mist' is a lovely shade of lilac-pink, while 'Fata Morgana' is a creamy shade of peach.

Flowering tobacco (Nicotiana alata x mutabilis) has an unusual form that makes it great for containers: tall (up to five feet) slender stems of greenish yellow with tiny leaves, topped with delicate star-shaped flowers in pastel colors. The flowers sometimes shift in color as they mature, from white to pale pink or light purple. They grow easily from seed: The 'Bella' mix has a blend of pink shades. The fragrance of flowering tobacco is subtle and sweet, and is often compared to jasmine, in part because it intensifies at night.

Sweet William is a variety of dianthus (also known simply as pinks) that grows in tall single stems with round clumps of flowers at the top. The color range is similar to the common clumping perennial form (Dianthus chinensis), with gorgeous color mixes of pink, white, crimson, lilac, and magenta in solids and bi-colors. Sweet William has the familiar, delicious clove-like fragrance of carnations (Dianthus caryophyllus), grows easily from seed, and blooms for weeks. It grows up to 18 inches tall, but there are also dwarf varieties, like 'Wee Willie', which grows 6 inches high.