The mock orange (Philadelphus lewisii cvs.) won’t bloom here for a while yet but I was going through some old photo files and I came across a series I took when my hubby and I visited the Patterson Garden Arboretum in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in summer 2014. I am more than a little enamoured with mock orange so I spent considerable time gawking at them and inhaling their magnificent fragrance while in the garden, despite the fact that the mosquitoes were eating us alive. (Insect repellent apparently doesn’t work in Saskatchewan – their mosquitoes are even more ridiculously nasty than ours in Alberta. Then again, they had just come off of weeks of rain and flooding in some areas of the province and the hatches were massive).
These are all hardy mock orange, rated for zone 3. Do you grow mock orange in your garden?
‘Jackii’
‘Marjorie’
‘Snow Goose’
‘Waterton’
Flowery Prose 
So beautiful flower!! 🙂
They are spectacular!
Gorgeous! I can almost smell them. Years ago I planted a mock orange. Later I realized I had gotten the wrong one. Mine is a Mexican mock orange. Not as fragrant, but pleasant in its own way. It is evergreen here, and often has bloomed in the winter. I’ve grown to really like it because it always looks nice.
I had to look it up – beautiful plants, especially with that evergreen foliage! They look like they’re nice and tidy, too – wish we could grow them here.
The plants have survived several really cold (not like Canada though) and a couple of ice storms. It is a beautiful plant, and I like that it grows and looks nice without needing any attention from me. Turned out to be a great mistake! 😉
I love it when things work out like that! 🙂
Same here!
I grew up in the humidity of Southwestern Ontario. One of my treasured scent memories is of awakening on a warm early summer morning and drowsily taking in the scent of the mock orange bushes just below my bedroom window. I think of those bushes quite often when I think of home.
What a beautiful memory, thanks so much for sharing!
Coming to Canada from the Caribbean, I remember my delight when I smelled the mock orange flower for the first time. That lovely, ‘citrusy’ scent!
I can imagine! That citrus fragrance is amazing and a bit surprising – you don’t really expect it from plants growing this far north.
Very beautiful but unknown for me.
The flowers are gorgeous – I can’t decide if I like the single or the double blooms best. 🙂
There must be many varieties of Mock Orange as I have seen them in a botanical garden here in zone 8-9. Yes, they all smell great.
I read somewhere that there are over 60 species, and most of them will grow in your zone…we don’t have as many really cold hardy ones to choose from, but there are a few that do well here.
I love mock orange! I haven’t got any in this garden any more as the last one got killed by a very late and hard frost.
That’s too bad! That could be a worry here, too….
A beautiful flower. I have never seen them in Maine.
They have the most amazing scent – it’s too bad they don’t bloom for very long. But they’re a really nice looking shrub even without flowers.
Ooh yes, a nice reminder of what’s to come. I have two and one smells nicer than the other. They are leafing out already. 🙂
Soon, then…. 🙂 They are gorgeous.
I think I’ve been smelling it on my walk! Fabulous!
That fragrance is incredible!