Scented flowering houseplants tend to be specialty items, so you can't always find them in the nursery. The following can be purchased by mail-order.
* Aglaia odorata, 'Chinese Perfume Plant': Tiny yellow flowers with a delicate, sweet fragrance bloom throughout the year. It is a slow grower with an upright, bushy habit. Grow in an eastern or western window.
* Begonia: Several types pack a powerful scent. In general, begonias should be grown in an eastern window and watered only when they approach dryness.
Begonia 'Lenore Olivier' has large, compact clusters of fragrant salmon-pink flowers. The leaves are a dark coppery color with a red back.
Begonia 'Peach parfait' has large clusters of fragrant pastel-orange flowers and silver-spotted leaves.
Begonia venosa is a distinctive shrublike plant with white flowers that have a spicy fragrance. Thick, succulent leaves covered with white markings.
* Brunfelsia Australis, 'Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow': Named for flowers that fade from a rich blue-violet to white, this plant produces grape-scented blooms throughout the year.
* B. jamaicensis has long, tubular, creamy-white flowers that smell like Easter lilies and bloom throughout the year. Provide bright light from a southern window. Keep moist but not soggy.
* Codonanthe carnosa: This compact trailing plant has small, round, dark-green foliage and strongly scented, waxy white flowers each spring, followed by colorful orange berries. Requires an eastern window. Let it approach dryness between waterings and provide a well-drained soil.
* Hoya: Many hoyas with their waxy, stunning flowers provide fragrance to the indoors. They like a bright southern or western window and prefer drying out between waterings. Most bloom summer through fall.
Hoya australis have red-centered white flowers with a chocolate-vanilla fragrance. Bright-green leaves.
Hoya coronaria is a reliable bloomer that produces small clusters of deliciously fragrant white blooms in spring and summer. It's a trailer and does well as a topiary or in a hanging basket.
Hoya lacunosa has cinnamon-scented clusters of yellow-centered white flowers. Small, glossy, dark-green leaves and thin trailing stems make it a good hanging-basket plant. Blooms constantly.
Hoya odorata produces large, fragrant, white star-shaped flowers with yellow centers throughout the year.
