The shelf life of the garden indoors is so brief that sometimes it seems like a waste. How fortunate, then, that through the alchemy of potpourri you can keep the garden's essence going indoors for months, scenting the house with a sweetly pungent reminder of high summer.

Long before the advent of those packaged mixes of dyed wood chips and desiccated fruit, homes were scented with dried rose petals and stems of lavender from the garden. No amount of fancy packaging can mask the fact that the store-bought potpourri smells as artificial as a drugstore gardenia-scented candle. Why not, then, return to the centuries-old art of potpourri-making, using fixings we're growing right outside our doors?

The word potpourri, by the way, has a definition not nearly as agreeable as the product. It's a French word meaning "rotted pot," named for an early method of making moist potpourris. A perfumed compost of fresh botanicals, spices and salt, they stayed redolent (of what I'm not sure) for years. The dried potpourris of today are made as much for looks as for scent, with silky petals, colorful buds, leaves and spices heaped into an open bowl and set about the house. They are simple to make, since you can use anything that retains its color or fragrance when dried. This leaves latitude for creativity, allowing cloves, dried orange peel, shredded moss, cinnamon stick or anything else you fancy on a given day for your own custom-made potpourri.

Entire books examine methods of drying plants, including using the microwave. Laying petals out to dry away from the sun, pressing, or sticking them in paper bags all work. It's one of those things you need to experiment with. I just lay them out on a table in the laundry room, and pretty soon they're ready. Fresh botanicals lose half their volume when dried, so harvest plenty of material to get started.

Now In Bloom Beloved by flower arrangers for its orange whorls of bloom, lion's ear (Leonotis ocymifolia) needs a warm, sunny spot and good drainage to encourage its dramatic flowers spaced like little explosions along the tall, spiky stems. If overwintered in a greenhouse, lion's ear will grow into a sub-shrub; I've been able to grow it only as an annual.

Roses and lavender are the traditional aromatics. For intense, lasting fragrance, choose the old-fashioned Gallica and Damask roses, especially the so-called apothecary rose, R. gallica var, officinalis, whose pink petals actually become more fragrant after drying. The color of petals and buds grows muted and may darken as they dry. White, cream and yellow roses often brown, and the dark reds can look nearly black, but pale pink petals turn rosy, and bright orange may well dry to a welcome shade of apricot.

While rose petals add color as well as fragrance, the brisk aromatics of lavender spice up the mix. Experts recommend using some of the white lavenders such as L. x intermedia 'White Spike' to lighten up the combination of colors; they have long-lasting scent, too. The darker purples, such as L. augustifolia 'Twickel Purple' keep their color when dried.

Potpourri is a perfect use for the leaves of scented geraniums. Pine, lemon, peach, chocolate, lime, cinnamon and peppermint are just a few of the wide variety of aromas mimicked in their soft little leaves. Pick the geranium's young foliage early in the morning and dry it away from the sun to keep its perfume vital for months.

You may well have some of these potpourri-perfect plants already growing in your garden: For scent: Bee balm (Monarda), salvia, hummingbird mint (Agastache), cinnamon basil (Ocimum basilicum), rosemary, catmint (Nepeta), lemon thyme. For colorful petals: carnations, feverfew, larkspurs, marigold and stock.

Valerie Easton is a horticultural librarian and writes about plants and gardens for Pacific Northwest magazine. She is the co-author of "Artists in Their Gardens" from Sasquatch Books. Her e-mail address is vjeaston@aol.com. Ellen Banner is a Seattle Times staff photographer.