Coniferous and citrus scents are refreshing, restoring and revitalizing. Their smell shakes the doldrums of drab days and brings a little sunshine to your outlook on life.

Coniferous scents like pine, cypress and especially balsam fir, are healing and restorative, both for physical ailments, like chest colds and congestion and for emotional ones, like exhaustion, anxiety and feeling worn out.

The smell of pine reminds people of the holidays and it is an instant pick me up.

Balsam fir is a natural balm for both body and soul: its syrup and salve will get rid of your cough, its diffused scent will get rid of your worries.

Woodier scents like cedar, birch and sandalwood help you regain stability and balance, they allow you to center yourself and quiet the hassled mind, but much like earthy scents they can overpower in quantity.

Coniferous scents blend well with each other, but are too strong for more delicate scents like green and floral.

Citrus scents are great for those low energy times when everything feels kind of blah.

Lemon, bergamot, lemongrass, orange, tangerine, lime and grapefruit are energizing, refreshing and cheerful, they just make you feel like everything is going to be ok and put a smile on your face while they’re at it.

Do you want to clean the air, both literally and figuratively? Lemon oil will help you with that.

Grapefruit is said to reduce appetite, get water out of your tissues and reduce puffiness.

Citrus and green scents always go well together, and they are also friendly to the sweet and intense floral and spicy scents, like ylang-ylang, neroli and cloves.

Be careful with using citrus oils topically, they are phototoxic.

Author's Bio: 

Main Areas: Garden Writing; Sustainable Gardening; Homegrown Harvest
Published Books: “Terra Two”; “Generations”; "The Plant - A Steampunk Story"; "Letters to Lelia"; "Fair"; "Door Number Eight"; "A Year and A Day"; "Möbius' Code"; "Between Mirrors"
Career Focus: Author; Consummate Gardener;
Affiliation: All Year Garden; The Weekly Gardener; Francis Rosenfeld's Blog

I started blogging in 2010, to share the joy of growing all things green and the beauty of the garden through the seasons. Two garden blogs were born: allyeargarden.com and theweeklygardener.com, a periodical that followed it one year later. I wanted to assemble an informal compendium of the things I learned from my grandfather, wonderful books, educational websites, and my own experience, in the hope that other people might use it in their own gardening practice.