The Fragrance Garden

The Fragrance Garden, established in 1985, is the youngest of the Memorial Gardens. Seeking a way to enable people with limited or no eyesight to enjoy the flowers, Mme. Dorothy de Rothschild initiated the Fragrance Garden. Designed specially for the visually impaired, it is a place that invites all visitors and all the senses to experience the horticultural splendor of Ramat Hanadiv.

The Fragrance Garden indeed awakens the senses of smell, touch, and hearing to the beauties of nature. It features plants — fuzzy-leaved sage, for instance, and rough stalks of rosemary that stimulate the sense of touch, and those that stand out for their particularly bold aromas, such as sweet lavender and pungent wormwood (artemisa). The signage presents the plant names in Braille so that every guest can identify each plant and learn to recognize it by its unique scent and texture.

A water fountain at the centre of the Fragrance Garden serves as an audio compass marking the entrance to the garden and its exit. Surrounding the pool is a wood pergola shading some benches. Next to it stand three tall, aristocratic trees, meticulously pruned. During the summer, an ‘Indian widower’ — the flowering vine Quisqualis indica — clambers up the pergola as the intoxicating smell of its luscious red blooms welcomes new arrivals to the garden.

To the right of the entrance, a waist-high bronze model of the garden demonstrates, through touch, the overall design and specific elements of the Fragrance Garden so that all visitors, sighted or not, can enjoy its charms to the utmost.