My favorites in heat (that I grow at least) - are Heirloom and Angel Face. The first is a larger bush, blooms are medium purple - darker than lavendar, but not deep purple. Fragrance is amazing. Blooms do not shrink in size in summer (like Blue Girl which for me does NOT do well in the heat - it just shuts down). My Heirloom does get a few hours of afternoon shade. Angel Face (which I sadly lost this year to gophers, and WILL replace), is lighter lavendar, floribunda, not that large, very prolific, and thrived in my heat and full sun. Wonderful fragrance. I really miss her. I have Blueberry Hill, and for me it naps in the heat (and since all the other purple/lavendars I have have fragrance, its lack of is disappointing). Neptune is on my wish list. Blooms are large and unbelievably fragrant. Twilight Zone started with a bang (but the gophers got to it, and it spent this summer growing back its foliage). Ebb Tide is new for me, but I have seen how smokey its blooms get in full sun.

If you get a gardenia, dump your coffee grounds under it every so often. I do that about once a week, year round, and it is the happiest bush. When I first got it, the bugs and poor soil nearly killed it. I finally cut it down to just above the graft. Basically, I gave up on it. But I couldn't bear to rip it out. Someone here recommended coffee grounds, so I did that and waited. (I don't irrigate or use fertilizer or pesticides.) It is now much larger than when I cut it down and it's healthy enough to fight off bugs on its own. It's just finishing up another show-stopper bloom season. Before I cut it down and started the coffee grounds, its bloom season was short and unimpressive. It gets full sun until noon.

I finally found seeds , and was successful in growing davanam. this year, my plants are a foot tall and blooming, I am saving the blooms for fresh batch of seeds. Seeds germinate within 3 days and are very easy to grow, but when transplanted most of them did not survive.

I love fragrant plants. Thanks for all the varieties that are mentioned! I'm going to check the ones out that I don't have. Since Winter Honeysuckle was mentioned I went out and took a picture of mine so people would know what it looked like. I've read that it isn't a particularly pretty bush, but I think it IS! This is not the best picture in the world, but here is the arching, graceful, green bush. And it wasn't covered during the freeze: And the white fragrant flowers: Click on the thumbnail if you want to see a larger view. I wanted to check the scent as to whether it smelled like Earl Gray Tea or Gardenia, but my nose was too cold. LOL