A garden cool to the touch

At the Ethel Dupar Fragrant Garden, it's best to let your nose and hands lead the way.

The Rainier Valley garden, now open for free public tours, is intended for you to smell and touch. The garden was designed for the blind and is focused on plants that are intensely fragrant or wonderfully soft.

Seattle Lighthouse, a nonprofit group supporting people who are blind, opened the garden in 1973 and has been renovating it for the past few years.

Head gardener Helen Weber picks hardier, soft plants for people to touch and adds ones with wonderful fragrance. It's difficult to find plants that are both tactile and fragrant, though the peppermint-scented geranium is an exception, she said.

"It's an eminently strokeable plant," she said.

Raised beds bring the more than 50 varieties of flowers, herbs and spices close to your face to smell and to touch, and many are labeled in Braille. The 1/3-acre garden also is wheelchair accessible.

The garden is located behind the Lighthouse for the Blind, 2501 S. Plum St., Seattle. Tours are available at 11 a.m. today, Aug. 25 and Sept. 15.

For more information, go to www.seattlelighthouse.org/garden.

Nicole Tsong: ntsong@seattletimes.com