Scent Garden

The park of Villa Saroli can boast the presence of three unusual flower beds, cultivated with plants belonging to the three olfactory spheres of scents, aromas and bad smells.

Cultivated plants

Among the 116 cultivated essences, there are two plants that are very rare in Switzerland that grow along the Gandria trail: dictyamus and rue.

Plants still used to make essences such as damask rose, tuberose, Florentine iris and lily of the valley can be discovered. Aromatic plants such as wild thyme, rosemary, sage and tarragon, santolina, chocolate mint and meadow cumin are rediscovered.

Among the many curiosities are discovered abrotane, which tastes like coca-cola, and Swedish ivy, which tastes like incense. In spring, clear gigarum and dragontea bloom, plants that give off a strong smell of rotting flesh. Equally foul-smelling is catapuntia euphorbia: an indigenous plant used by horticulturists to keep moles and grillitalpa, which cannot stand the smell, at a distance.