IF ONLY YOU COULD VISIT ME JUST NOW, while my Linden tree is in bloom. From late June through mid-July, this Tilia dangles creamy-yellow, star-shaped flowers beneath its pale-green branches. The flowers are not conspicuous. But they don’t have to be! They announce their presence by exhaling the sweetest, most powerful perfume known to the plant kingdom.
The scent — a blend of honey and lemon peel — is far-reaching. On a warm, still day, it envelopes all four acres here. In the evening it drifts indoors through open windows. Of course the bees love the fragrance as much as I do; the tree buzzes with life throughout its bloom period.
I’ve read that Lindens can live for 1000 years. This means mine (above, tree with silver-toned leaves) is probably a youngster of about 100 years old. It stands about 80 feet tall and 40 feet wide. Believe me, it was worth buying this old, dilapidated manse just to inherit this great tree.
If you already have a mature Tilia on your property, or one in a public park near you, by all means cherish it. The perfume will enchant you, and its shade, on a hot summer afternoon, will soothe you.
Varieties
Tilia americana. Not for a small suburban yard, but delightful in a park (or a park-size yard), this “Basswood” matures at 60-80 feet, with a 20-40 spread in deep, fertile, moist soil. Hardy zones 3-7.
Tilia cordata or “Littleleaf Linden”. This one will tolerate a wide range of soils, and even winter salt, making it ideal for sidewalk planting. That is, until it achieves its potential 30-50 feet height, and 20-30 foot width. Pyramidal in shape; hardy in zones 3-8.
Tilia tomentosa This might be the variety I have. Leaves are heart-shaped with silvery undersides, giving the tree the common name “Silver Linden.” Grows 80-100 feet tall, and 40 feet wide. Mine flourishes in zone 5-b, although the “authorities” say it is hardy in zones 6-9.
Tilia platyphyllos. You will see this imposing, “Bigleaf Linden” lining formal boulevards and grand allees throughout Europe. Despite the nickname, its leaves are no bigger than other lindens, but its stems are covered in long hairs. Hardy in zones 5-8.
In the comments, please let me know if you have ever smelled the blossoms of the Linden tree. Intoxicating, yes?
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This is the tree that has everyone looking around, wondering where the great scent is coming from. The scent is intoxicating.
Never have, but added this to my list of things to one day enjoy…now to research an area where they grow and plan a future trip during bloom time…thanks for such an interesting site…enjoy all of your writings and recipes.
Have never smelled one that I know of. It sounds like the sort of scent you'd want to smell before deciding whether to plant one. Have you ever come across anyone who didn't like the smell or found it overpowering?
Anonymous — Glad you enjoy this site. Hopefully you can find an in-bloom Linden not far from you. I know they are plentiful in the Northeast, and also in England. A friend in London called this morning and told me all the Lindens are in bloom there now, too.
BBI — While the scent is heavy, it is not cloying. I find it infinitely inhalable!
BBI, the smell of the Linden is not overpowering. It is memorable and lovely. I particularly favor the Linden as my formal first name is none other than Linden. I was named after the tree my mother so loved!
Wow, how lucky and cool to be named for a beautiful tree!
Alas, what scent memories this brings, my beloved
tilia cordata had to be taken down last spring
due to storm damage and too close to house.
How I miss her! I put her in as a small slip
forty years before and I still mourn her passing.
Also miss the Goldfinches that dined on the
flowers! How fortunate you are.
I have eight of them in a small area (silver lindens) and my whole house smells divine, but I have to have them pruned every few years and wonder if eventually some or most will have to go if pruning can't keep them about the size they are now. They are about 15 years old and growing quite a bit each year.
Mary Ann in Rochester – welcome. You can't imagine how badly I feel for both you and your tree. Forty years is a long history together. I wonder if you remember how many years before your cordata bloomed?
SDN – Welcome. Wow – eight silver lindens! Did you plant them yourself? I'd consult with a tree expert regarding pruning (if you haven't already). Not sure how long you can keep their growth in check without jeopardizing health. They are powerful growers. Same question for you as Mary Ann — how many years before your trees started to bloom?
I have a little leaf linden that I planted as a whip 4 years ago. it is now almost as tall as my 2 story house! It grows very quickly but I wasn’t sure it was going to make it because we kept having to prop it up… it was flopping right over into the street! Anyway, it is growing relatively straight now and I’m anxious to experience this scent. I would love to know when to expect it!
Rachel – That’s some fast-growing Linden you have! Blooms and perfume — for me, anyway — always occur in July.
The scent is indeed intoxicating! I live in lower Manhattan, in New York City, and there is a small park (called Corlear’s Hook Park), on which the paths are lined with about 20 or so Silver Linden trees. This time of year the scent “calls” to me, from blocks away, I just returned from my walk, and wanted to read about these wonderful trees. They’re so shady, and this park is just the place to visit on a hot day, as the benches are underneath them. Gorgeous too, and I’m so glad to learn they live so long.
Susan – Nice to meet you. It is indeed a scent that “beckons.” You are lucky to live near Corlear’s Hook Park.
Thank you for the information on the Linden tree. Every day when walking my dogs I walk past these trees and wondered what kind they were. Beautiful soft sweet smell.
Claire from Illinois.
She was 10 yrs. old when first blossomed and we were in love ever after
love the pics, learned life lesson, never plant too near the house
love your site, great info, and recipes, vinegar weed control working!!
Linden is one of my favorite tree medicines. The dried flowers grace my tea most days and calm my nerves in a soft, gentle way.
There was a road near where we lived in London that was lined with Linden trees and we would go there to play in the summer just to enjoy that incredible scent.
Thank you so much for posting this! We just got back from the south of France. While walking around the lovely town of Ilse de la Sourge in Province, my husband and I could not figure out where the intoxicating fragrance was coming from that filled the air. Then we crossed a small plaza shaded by enormous trees filled with tiny yellow flowers. We could not believe our noses! Never having seen a Linden tree, I took a close-up picture of the flowers to take to my local nursery for identification. Now I know! You are the best, Kevin! I love your website because it is filled with so much interesting information. Don’t ever stop!
I live in Bristol RI, and have also wondered what the beautiful, sweet smelling trees all over town were called. Shame on me! Bristol is famous for it’s lindens, and we even have a mansion in the center of town called “Linden Place”!
I have two of these trees and if I could the japanese beatles off of it they would be great.
SDN – look into pollarding your linden trees. It’s very popular method of pruning linden trees in Europe so they can be grown and enjoyed in the urban setting. Love those trees and planted tiny whips on our property. Used to have one that was probably more than 100 years old in the old house. It was great to sit under it and enjoy the scent and music of all kinds of insects feasting on the nectar. Dried flowers make nice, calming tea.
Great info about the Linden. I have a miniature one planted in my garden I will transfer into a bonsai pot next year. The potential flowering cycle is an extra to look forward to.
The German-American Klub of Indianapolis has a brick walk around one side that is fully shaded by Linden trees, thus one walks ‘unter der Linden”. The fragrance is usually mistaken as being from the flowers in the shady garden.
there is an ancient Linden tree along the brook near the house. The sweet aroma when it is in bloom is truly intoxicating, but most amazing is the humming of what must be a million bees feasting on the nectar. My grandmother would dry the blossoms for tea in the winter time. Ah, memories. BTW I live in Austria and enjoy your blog tremendously. You make me have more plans than I have time for
We also have an eighty year old linden in our yard. It shades our house most of the day. Glad to hear they live a long time as we don’t have air conditioning and would miss the shade.
I understand the flowers make a wonderful tea. Too bad they are too high to harvest. Truly fragrant and inviting.
Last year I bought some honey from a local husband and wife, and one of the varieties they offered was a linden flower honey. They recommended the linden honey for herbal teas, and they were so right! Fabulous, unlike any other honey I’ve tried. I’m sure there are lindens somewhere in the city nearby where I live; none out here near me in my town, or I’d have smelled them out by now. Thanks, Kevin!
Kevin, thank you SO much for unknowingly identifying a mystery tree for me!
I was recently at a convention center; noticing a sweet smell in the air, I looked up into the tree I was sitting under. Boom. Tons of bee’s, little star-shaped flowers, and the air was heavy with a deep honey smell.
I took some pictures of the leaves/flowers to try to identify it with my MIL’s best reference: her Dirr’s Hardy Tree’s and Shrubs! … No luck.
And now in just ONE post I now know what this beautiful mystery tree is!!! Maybe when we try to ‘replace’ a dying maple in our backyard, I’ll plant the ‘Littleleaf Linden” in it’s place. I’m all for that intoxicating scent! ♥
Back in the 1970′s I was the main actor in a project to introduce the natural enemies of the Linden aphid in the San Francisco Bay area. This solved the pest problem on the large lindens growing along the streets and other areas. This eliminated the decades long pesticide applications. I would like to know of people/places where the aphid remains a problem. Reports written about this project are on my webside but it is now going through some major changes. Check back or email me directly if interested. regards, bill
When I was in graduate school back in the late ’60s, a linden grew outside our seminar room in Sprague Hall at Yale. How hard it was to keep one’s mind on Byzantine chant or medieval music notation with that heavenly perfume drifting through the open windows.
A couple of years ago, my friend and I agreed to meet for lunch in a park near our work. We were wondering around scouting out a picnic table as we walked under the canopy of this enormous tree. We both stopped, looked at eachother, held out our palms and breathed deep and slow. It was transcendental. We drug a picnic table under that tree, and ate our delicious hawaiian bar-b-que takeout, as little pale flowers would flutter down around us. A heavenly memory.
I love my linden, too! I suspect it was planted when the house was built here in southeast Pennsylvania in 1954. The heady fragrance more than compensates for the ‘mess’ when the buds drop & the myriad little fruits that follow. Autumn is not the beauty season for the linden, but when the brown leaves fall, the tree’s graceful fountain shape is revealed.
I grew up in France, practically under the oldest Linden tree in Europe; it is close to a thousand years old. The tree hosted all my dreams from childhood to my early twenties. It has sheltered my laughters and my sorrows. For years and years, under the shade of its large extended branches my village hosted yearly events, starting with medieval feasts in the 1400s to the modern “bals du 14 juillet” and wine festivals. When i now dream about our Linden tree from so far away, i smile as i still capture the fragrance that swirled me around the danse floor. From so far away, I honored its majestic loyalty as our Tilleul still sweetens the days and nights of those who come to sit quietly underneath, or the laughters of the kids who encircle its trunk… like i did with my friends when a child….
Anyone know if a Linden will thrive in the Chicagoland area? I am in Wheaton. We recently lost a less desirable tree to major storms and maybe this would be a lovely replacement. Where does one find these “slips” you speak of?
Kevin – I love your blog. You are an amazing photographer and I would dearly love to have a 1/4 of your gardens. Keep writing – you are really really good. Furthermore, with all the wonderfully decadent desserts you post about making, how do you stay trim? Peace -
TAMMY,
Lindens are native trees in the mid-west. It would do quite well in Illinois.
Easily available at garden centers. Tilia is the latin name.
Read above to decide which species is best for your yard.
Have fun!
Hi folks,
We have a large, old Linden which shades our summer house in Nova Scotia, Canada. It is about 4 – 5 feet in diameter at the base and buzzes with small bees while in bloom. Now, in early fall it seems that it is full of what appear to be hornets, rather than bees, but I may be mistaken. If this is common, or if anyone could enlighten me as to whether they are a different type of bee, etc I would appreciate it. I could email a picture of the tree if that would help.
Thanks, Darrell
Thanks for highlighting the beauty of these trees and their famed perfume. We had many streets and a small river quay embankment lined with linden (Lipa) trees in the small town of Sveti Nikole, Macedonia. When they were in bloom in June that sweet honey lemony fragrance was simply unforgettable. After heavy rains there’d be perfumed rivers of linden tree tea running down the streets, with puddles of brewed linden tea – a truly bewildering sight. It is indeed a favourite tea Чај од Липа (Lipa Chai) made from the picked florets of the fragrant linden tree, then dried. An amazing gift of nature. So thankful.