Make Your Patio Smell Like Cherry Pie With This Fragrant Flower

Nothing says summer like a cherry pie. However, if you're better at honing your green thumb than baking, don't worry — you can capture the deliciously warm scent of a freshly baked pie without needing to break out your oven mitts thanks to this fragrant flower.

The term heliotrope refers to hundreds of flowers within the genus Heliotropium. These colorful flowers can be grown as annuals or perennials, depending on their variety, and their bright blooms attract a range of friendly pollinators, making it one of the best fragrant plants to include in your butterfly garden. Heliotrope flowers have a distinctive sweet smell, which many describe as similar to cherry or vanilla. Because of their scent, these plants have also earned themselves the common name of cherry pie flower. This means that if you want to capture that irresistible bakery-fresh scent of cherries this summer, adding heliotropes around your patio may be one route to consider, especially since they readily grow in containers.

To flood your patio with as much of this plant's sweet scent as possible, you'll need to provide the proper care to maximize flowering. However, it depends on the exact species of heliotrope you plan on planting. Two common varieties are the creeping heliotrope (Heliotropium amplexicaule) and Peruvian heliotrope (Heliotropium arborescens). We have everything you need to know before planting heliotrope so you can enjoy these head-turning flowers to their fullest.

Heliotrope flowers are hardy in zones 9 through 11, giving them a limited range in the United States where they can be grown as perennials. However, if you're taking advantage of their container-friendly growth that makes them such a good choice for patios, you can grow them as annuals and bring them inside once the temperatures begin to drop. This ensures they're protected from the cold while saving you the work of planting and re-establishing these fragrant flowers come next year.

The "helio" in heliotrope actually relates to sun. As a result, you want to ensure that your patio has an adequate amount of light to support these sun-loving flowers. Heliotropes grow best when given full sun. However, if you live in a warmer climate, partial shade that offers sun in the morning and shade during the hottest parts of the day (such as an east-facing spot) also helps these flowers to thrive. Just keep in mind that, while heliotropes can tolerate partial shade, too much may limit the amount of fragrance-producing flowers that bloom.

When growing heliotropes for a fragrance-filled patio, the key is to optimize blooming. Although not required, deadheading can help with this by removing any lackluster or spent flowers and encouraging your plant to continue growing. Just be careful not to deadhead your flowers too much, which can harm the plant and jeopardize your pie-scented patio.