“Fragrance, whether strong or delicate, is a highly subjective matter, and one gardener’s perfume is another gardener’s stink.” Katherine White
All five senses can be stimulated in a garden. Colors and forms are seen by the eyes; edible plants can be eaten; textures and thorns can be felt; and the wind blowing through foliage and the buzzes and chirps of garden visitors reach our ears. Scent in the garden is often surprising and difficult to locate.
Herbs are some of the most aromatic plants, full of essentials oils that only need to be brushed against or crushed to notice a scent. The heat of the sun alone releases distinctive smells of herbs, both medicinal and culinary. Thyme has a history as both. The Egyptians used thyme in the embalming process; the Greeks as an incense indicating courage; the Romans purified rooms with it and put it under pillows to ward off nightmares. Plant creeping thyme in the cracks of stone walkways and release the odor as you walk. The small-leafed creeping thyme, Thymus serphyllum or T. praecox, often called the mother-of-thyme, is most appropriate.
“The Thymes are herbs of the classical world, plants of the old agriculture and the gods, the proverbial bee-pasture of husbandry and poetry, the symbol of things cherished and of honeyed and fragrant sweetness.” Henry Beston
Flowers are often highly and sweetly scented to attract pollinators. Bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds are drawn to the blooms, taking their nourishment and pollinating in the process. Humans enjoy the sweetness of hyacinths, lilacs, honeysuckle, and roses.
“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” Gertrude Stein
But a rose may not smell like a rose. As newer varieties of roses and other plants have been developed for bigger and better blooms, the delicious odors have been lost in the process.
White flowers are often night scented. As dusk falls, through the night, and into the early hours of morning white blooms entice moths for pollination. The perfume of these blossoms seems to be exceptionally intense. Gardenias, moonflowers, tuberose, nicotiana, night phlox, and acidanthera have powerful nocturnal smells. The Casa Blanca lily sends out a wave of nutmeg scent into the darkness. Walking in a nighttime garden is especially sensual with cool breezes in the dark and delicious odors wafting by.
And then there are the flowers that depend on flies for pollination. Our native skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetipus, in early spring, before the emergence of its skunky leaves, produces a structure of spathe and spadix, sexual parts smelling of decaying flesh. The early flies get their worm, so to speak. In the tropics Amorphophallus konjac, the voodoo lily, a plant used as a food source, also produces a flowering with a dead animal odor for the carrion flies. In cultivated gardens the Fritillaria imperialis has majestic vivid orange or yellow blooms atop three foot stalks. Christopher Lloyd said “of course the plant does smell appalling – a mixing of garlic and fox.” Jamaica Kincaid wrote of “the delightful stink of the fritillarias (the smell of the underarms of ten people you love).” Hmm. And some gardeners adore the scent of boxwood; while others smell only cat urine.
Marcel Proust dipped a Madeleine cookie into his cup of tea and the scent brought him back to relive the past. Garden aromas can cause the same effect. I always plant old heirloom sweet peas that possess the most delicious fragrances. I have been told that smelling the sweet peas has brought back tender memories of grandmothers and their gardens, releasing tears of joy and sorrow.
I remember last season, driving along route 112 in Buckland when waves of skunky hemp odor filled the interior of my car, those essential oils heated by the sun. Now sweet lilac scent fills the breeze and a gardening friend lifts a pot of the herb Sangusorba to her face and says, “it smells just like cucumber.”
The fragrance of the garden is a means of communication in the botanic world involving pheromones and esters. The plants are attracting pollinators and communing with each other. It is not translatable for humans, a different kind of conversation. Yet the scents are part of the beauty of the botanical world.
“Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.” Walt Whitman
June, 2020