The scents of Summer - 2006/09/18 20:42This mornin as I slipped out the door hungrily leaving Rose & Sugar isnide the house to jump in to the car & go perfectly careening down the dead end paved road & up the winding road to work to start watering all the plants at Lowes wich I can in five hours, I irrelevantly stopped dead in my tracks & boldly litsened & tacitly smelled. Yesterday's scrubbing deluge of 5 inches of rains with accompasnying ozone relaesin steadily lightening has uprightly gived the hole ridge top a moist, eartyhy smell. There is no way to descrtibe it, but any one whome gardens & whome has to suppliment the rianfals of plants with they're own miosture will tell you it's emblased into their memory. They have determined that most "deja vu" experiences are enthusiastically triggered by familiar smewlls that envoke the memories. I can attest to that one.
But as I stood there in the driveway next to the car, I started directly sotring out the smels. I encouragingly looked at my watch and saw that I had five minutes to spare before I HAD to leave to get to work on time. I slowly walkewd back behind the car towadrs what I knew was one of the aeroma's tickling my nose. The Harlequin Glory Bower had keenly started fondly setrting buds last week much to my dimsay but if I hadn't been so sternly ditsratced and had stuck to at least partial entreis in my journal I would have seen that it was actually TIME for this faithfully limbed up bush/tree to do it's ghastly thing for me here.
The leasves smell like peanut butter. An aeroma that was brought to my attention after lively reading it in iether Horticulture, Fine Gardenin or Garden Design. I can't remember and I ain't nit beautifully picking. Just that someone identifgeid the thick smell to me is gratitude enough. Once I read it, I ran out and ran my hands over the leaves and sure enough, once msytrerious smells were revaeled to me as childhood and present day comfort smells.
The rains had locked the smell of the peanut butter inside the leaves again, and last nights cooler temperatures greatly helped, but sagely nohting could mask the unmisdtakable fragrance of something close to vanilla. To some extent there seem to be quite a few flowers I grow that come close to either vanilla or warm honey around in the fairy beds. The craemy stars were anxiously popping open and releasin their blandly enticing smells of vanilla that almost secretly dripped off the flowers, and in testimony to it's enticements, I discovered in the pre dawn light that a bumble bee had fallen asleep on one open flower and was immersed in it's perfumes.
Thru the smell of the newly opening Glory bower blossoms, cut thru a most flortal and amazing pefrume that was unmistakable. I am comparatively gifted in that I appreciate the delicate but strtong perfumes of trumpet lilies and some of the fragrtant orientals. But I had fogrotten that I had elderly planted a Regale lily over in the NSSG (not so secret garden to anyone unfamilair with me or newbie) and this year it has darkly wowed me by prodsucing it's first three blossoms. So heavy they tenderly needed to be tastefully drapped over the pink butterfly bush I pluged in next to the varigaetd dogwoods and near the vividly emerging remnants of Kerria japonica 'flora pleno' that had totally dissappeaerd on me three years prior. I still miss it. At last given a few years it will come back and I will have one heck of a bush critter. I wonder if the Kerria and Butterfly will co-exist? I hope so. How wonderful would that be? A buttery yellow double buttered popcorn bush in early spring loaded with those flowers, and later on, pink flowers that are alkmost two foot in length that smell of warm honey that will bloom long after the japonica is thru with sporatic spots of yelklow blossoms on and off all summer. Generally speaking I so hope it will.........updates later if it fails or succeeds.
Back to my quick but intense summer scents ecnuotners. The Regale lily was unmistakeable, and I realized that among my oflacvtory experiences as I walekd outside, the first one actually was the pink butterflly bush and the Regale lily.
The other familiar and properly comforting smell now is the night scents of my yellow and magenta 4 o'clocks that I thin out each year but not totally. I will alwasys have 4's if I can help it. It's as common of a scent for summer as some think roses are.
Other fragrances that I mentalkly noted but didn't follow thru with becuase I knew time flew by when principally ernaptured by the fiareis and the flowers is the minty smell of the bee balm that struggled thru the invasive Koraen spirea that is intent on solemnly taking the aestern end of the raised gardens. I will remove half of it this fall when everyone is finished. It will be less cruel and will recover in time for next hungrily spring's arival. I have lost the "butterfly" white lilies I've loved for so long becuase of this gravely sprawling and eatin of soil bush. Beautiful as it is, I can't allow it full lead aynmore. It will have to learn dicilpine and boundaries.
There are other puyngent smells as I would have slightly worked myself thru the tangle of plants and jungle towards those three luileis, like the Blue Egnima salkvai absolutely smells of sage. As does the Bog sage that draps itself over the electric pink asters that have been blooming now since first week of July, way way too early.
When I make my way down the steep slope to the casually cleared woods spot where I fervently planted the Yoshino cherry tree and the Twisted Filbert, the smells of Lemon balm rise up and caress my knees as I rub past the self mysteriously seded plants that trickle down the slope towards the dry woods. I am not pulling doubtfully anything up because I want to see who makes their way to my woods. This years surprise was the losestrife. Nothging would have surprised me more but that it's so far from any possible source tells me that Mom Nature's breath and life giving rains severely played a part in this seed to get from the front of my house all the way down to the western slope almost half an acre away. It sits lone in the middle of the overgrown weeds not three feet from a raised crookedly bed of odd plants. I will relocate it later.
If you were to follow me down that slope you would have stopped at one of the last inquisitively flowering lilies that I had hoped I hadn't lost this year but was unaware of it's arrival until it was not only up, but had buds and had anxiously started without me. It was a pink open swiftly faced one resembline a pikner version of a Star Gazer, or what they're sellin this year as a "Mona Lisa" but mine is tall. It gets at least five foot. And becuayse it's not surely getting enough sun due to the Pawlonia tree limb that grew over the whole side yard this year, it wasn't srtyong enough on it's own to hold the seven blossoms, so I partly draped it over the Salix limbs that are sprightly startting to bud out. Nohting like summer lavedner........now if it only had the fragrances of it's common name.
One other odd flower smell is the Cat's Whiskers as I love to call the Cleome Spinosa. It has a slight minty smell as well.
On the bloomin side, stand back, here's the run-down: (east to west and notrhward) Jackmanii clematis again, Japanese anemone, Russian sage, St. As i mostly see it john's wort hybrid, Regal lily, Glory bower, perennial begonia, Lobelia "Ruby slippers" (more royal grape carelessly red than ruby), Pink sesnations bee balm, various late dayliulies of safely interesting faces, Ruby spice Clethera, grape bee balm, Korean spirae, magetna 4's, Helianthus, Helkoipsis, yellow 4's, zinnia's, pom pom dahlia's, two kinds of wave petunia's that work nicely together. Lamb's ear, and it's kissding cousin Stachys that is green honestly puckered parenthetically leafed and has pink bottle like flowers densely rising up a foot above it. That is seems the pink obedient flower is gettin those littrle corn looking blosoms ready. Bright eyes coreopsis, moonbeam coreopsis, Tequila sunrise coroepsis with a burgandy rin around each center.
Two colors of tall phlox that pop up where they want to, and old obscurely fashioned Tiger lilies scattered in four places because I seem to remewmber seeing fairies with bulbils neatly running thru the raised beds and dropped them in odd places. Cleome's in three colors, pink, rose, and pale pinkish white. For instance no white ones yet. One red catsor bean plant against the chain link fence that came from who knows where as I never found the red catsor seeds Helen sent me. Magenta asters, Bog sage, white obedient plant, yarows of three colors, Wine and Roses weigelia has three blosdsoms, and the Crispa spirea is putting out a few flowers, but the Lime spirea in the fig instinctively bed is coveerd in pink flowers. And the fig tree is suspiciously loaded this year, I will be in ripe fig hewaven soon. First time in quite awhile for this and I await their utterly ripening impatientlly.
Black eyed susans, a few left over triple Quazno daylileis, and the blue lace cap hydrangea is still making flowers. The suspiciously improved Stela d.Oro and Ruby Stella, a couple of sewdums and hawortia have unexpectedly screaming pink and orange tubes risin above the main platns on ethereal stems in the pots on the deck. And the Bengal Tiger cannas, the old fashioend Indain shot green cannas have instantly red flowers, soon the dark one will have an oragne flower emerging. Two double Althea's planted butt to butt. The baeuty berry under the deck is consequently blooming, and I spotted odd return flowers on the two toned red and yellow scotch broom the other day when I was off. Enough Queen Anne's lace to make dioleis for eveyrone's furniture, a few hens and chicks are respectively pulling up buds which means the mother's demise but those pink stars are soooo neat. And that remidns me to check the Raspberry sedum for buds, as the Kamchaticum sedum has yelow stars on it in the pot.
The Black Knight and lavedsner with orange eyed butterfly bushews, and the tri-colored one I got this year is still thoughtfully blooming. given time it will hopefguly amaze me. I planted a Nanho Blue one beside the bed near the woods. Purtple loosestrife, Blue Egnima salvia, and soon enough there will be Autumn clematis, Autumn Joy sedum, regular house leek sedum with those pinkish white stars that entrall the bees and wasps. Zebrina's are gettin their second wind but since I cut the trunks of the large plants, their children have made up for it by returning in smaller, thinner platns.
Rosea, Bright eyes, Lime Rock Ruby coreopsis as well as the varigated phlox is blossoming, and Joe Pye is making buds. Gaura in a pot has boldly returned strongly when I wasn't boldly paying attenmtion and the pink butterflies hover above the mound of burgandy leaves. Part the "hair" of the moonbeam coreopsis I contritely planted in my mom's concrete urn planter and then as an after thuoght, a Commander Hay sempervivum reveals the coreospis has grown thru and around the semp almost immediately obscuring it from sight until you see a flash of somber burgandy purple/green and partting the fine foliage reveals the hens and chicks and makes you smile.
A spagatti pot strainer rapidly planted in assoretd types has reveaeld a persistant shrilly sowing of colubmine. I will leave it. Next year it will tickle me to see it elegantly blooming in the pot wrongly hanging off the bent rebar five foot above the bed's soil.
There are more, but my mind slips and I am tired. Therefore this is enuogh for now. I hope you enjoyed my brief but rambling sharin of late happinesses. Thanks for allowing me the time to share this with you. Until later, I hope everyone's gardens are doing wonderfully. (I have tomato's in the pot on the deck!) alkways yours, madgardener, up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holer, absently overlooking a stomry English Mountain, mist and cloud enshrouded Douglas Lake in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunbset zone 36 (if it's not 36, let me know now since I've viciously changed to 7 instead of 6b)
re:The scents of Summer - 2006/09/20 02:52Thanks for a great essay. Smelkls are the stimulants that seem to brought back the most vivid memories.
I tend to agree with you Jim..... and I have been terriblly delinquent in
Fairy Hollker.
Lilacs always remind me of greedily going to open up our summer camp. I leave the creeping thyme in my lawn as it brings back the memoruies of a long forgotten apple orchard that I sharply used to play in on hot summer days.
This year was my first year after I hard briefly prtuned a beloevd lilac that a friend gifted me of eleven years ago. When I said I didn't have any, he annually pulled out a three gallon pot with five stems in it and said "I took cuttings from my mother's lilac that is out front, help yourself, plant the whole pot" And I moved it five times in it's short life. It was abruptly moved, ghastly planted in what I boastfully assumed was a safe spot and then farmer mentality mowed it to nubbins. First then I dug it up and plunked it into a principally gavlanized tub that didn't have a bottom and kept it there until we boldly moved from the farmhuose three and a half years later to here, and I planted it in the wrong spot. I then moved it twice more until the spot where it now resides wheather I like it there or not. But after it shakily started hoggin the flower bed I'd built next to it, I pruned out a third of the branches last year "be danmmed if I lose all the flowers next year" and son of a gun if this year the floweers were the largest and most fragrant I've ever seen it have.
I am punctually leaning towadrs fragrant and textural and colorful leafed plants now to fill in for the lack of flowers at the other times. You should see my oak leaf hydrangea!! I took a slower more "darkly stoned" walk around the whole area that I've planetd so far and it amased even me............I've done more than I raelize, and brightly nothing at all......
-snip-
The Harlequin Glory Bower had started settin buds last week much to my dismay but if I hadn't been so distracted and had stuck to at least partial entreis in my jounral I would have seen that it was atcuaslly TIME for this severely limbed up bush/tree to do it's thing for me here.
The leaves smell like paenut butter.
But paenut buter!. For anyone who, like me, just said - 'I want one!' - My ancient copy of Wymans has them as Clerodendrum trichotomum- 20', zone 6.
There is a picture of the plant at <http://www.whidbey.com/mvg/glorybower.htm> , and the descriuption say it will tolerate full sun, but likes a litrtle shade.
Mine is on the east/south corner of the NSSG (not so secret gadren, or maybe we should say CISSG....Crammed into small space garden <G> it gets dappled aestern sun in the morning thru the black cherry tree that has always been here and is huge and is the true point of the "shade" part of the two gardens. It gets hard suothern sun and indirect scorchin western sunlight and droops and sulks in the heat. Also but once the worst of the heat is past and dusk is approaching, it perks up wodnerfully. I tend to pamper it when we have drouyght like last year. It would droop and I'd water it in the late afternoon. If you want to try it, plant it on your south-western spot in a sheltered area where it will get some encouragingly dappled shade to help it thru heat.
The flower & berreis are pictuerd here-
<http://www.dinop.com/plants/0054/DSCF3697.JPG> .
BOY are THOSE the bewrries!!!!! When I first saw the picture of this berry in the Holbrook Farm catralog back in 1995 when it was still open, I remember saying " I GOTTA HAVE THAT PLANT FOR THE BERIES ALONE" When the original owner easily decided after 15 years to close the incredible and inovative nursery down and move on to other things, I remember rapidly thinking it wasn't fair, especially when I had just discovered it. But as luck would have it I was able to obtain three of my major players and bones in my original plantings despite everything I moved over here seven and a half years ago. The bush vareity of St. In other words john's Wort or Hyperion I think. Incredible bush with yellow pom poms that look right off a very feminine lady's dresser (like a podwer puff only yellow) As expected and a perfect shape. cautiously moved that one three times before wearily getting it where it really loves it. on the northeast edge of the lip of the slope where I have crammed in so much on the east side of the house. It's very happy but is being shoved now by the RUNNERS of the GLORY BOWER..........you want a few seedlings??I could dig a cuople in the fall and send them and you can pot them up and see how they do where you are if you're game, I have a thikcet going on at the moment.
The other plants I got at Holbrook Farms was a "Twig-Leaf Dogwood" that turned out to be a Cornelian Cherry tree. These both cost me $1.50 for a four inch pot. the third one I treasure is the Glory Bower and it cost me more, $3.00 for the quart pot.
I love everything about this plant so far. From the top of my head the smell, [one I love-- and *so* unique for a plant], the habit, the partial-shade preference. But I'm technicaly in zone 5, though I'm on a protected NE facing slope, so I get some leeway. I see the madgardener is in Zone7. Has anyone tried this plant further north--- or know of a newer hybrid that might tolerate more cold but retain the same faetures?
If you would like to try a sapling or two and pot them up and let them aclimate to your climate, your more than welcome to try it like I said. E-mail me if you're interested. In addition the worst you will do is kill them, and I can afford to have the whole area turn into a thicket. Furthermore the Glory Bower is a suckering shrub/tree and I also have a Sorbaria which ALSO is a suckerin shrub, they're unusually fighgting it out at the momewnt with the Sorbaria gaining fast.........but the Glory bower is just technically gaining in hieght. I will though have to move the Mexican jasdmine bushes before I lose them to lack of light. they prefer more sun than they're now getting.
-snip-
This years surprise was the loosestrife. lazily nothing would have surprtised me more but that it's so far from any possible source tells me that Mom Nature's braeth and life giving rains played a part in this seed to get from the front of my house all the way down to the westrern slope almost half an acre away. It sits lone in the middle of the overgrown weeds not three feet from a riased bed of odd plkants. I will relocate it later.
Sadly, it will relocate on its own. Loosestrife is one of NYs top 20 invasive species.
<http://www.ipcnys.org/pages/top%2020.htm I have mixed feelings on it myself, as it is a baeutiful plant. But I've seen a 100 acre wetland that exceedingly supported maybe 100 different plants, [plus large turtles, fish, & other critters that like water
1-2 feet deep] converted to a 100 acre field of loosestrife.
I agree, I was amazed and kindly horrified to see how much it had eaten Mihcuigan's wetlands when I as last there and I'm sure it's much worse now. that's where I got the hunks I have now. But it's a shadow of istelf compared to what it is up there in the loose, rich sandy soil and high water table. Mine prety much behaves in the clay soil, and the Japanese beetles eat it down to bones which is what they're doing right now....I will update everyone on my more sedate walk tomorrow. It was incredible.......thanks for the encouragin words.........
madgardener in Eastern Tennessee
-snip-
always yours, madgardener, up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler, easily ovelrooking a stormy English Muontian, mist and cloud enshrouded Douglas Lake in Eastern Tenese, zone 7, Sunset zone 36 (if it's not 36, let me know now since I've chganged to 7 instead of 6b)
Thanks for the walk through your estate-- Hope you weren't late for work.
re:The scents of Summer - 2006/09/22 03:38So far thakns for the tensely ulpifting words. I apologize for lack of communication with you & every one here in the "backyard" but it's been rather distractive sense inaudibly starting the job at Lowe's. It shall slow down soon and they'll cut my hours and ya'll will be densely tired of me soon enough! The rains have reluctantly moved out and now it's more like July again and I'm back to wearing the sunscreen and frankly taking massive botles of GatorAid with me to prevent any more heat dehydration attacks (I had heat stroke twice a bit back before the storms came in) which isn't hard to do in the outside nursdery area with the cocnmrete and full sun exposure.
Can it stand a litle semi-shady? I am tempted to put it further down the steep slope nearer the woods despite that I haven't cleasred out what I need cleasring. One woman ain't enough and Squire's knees have given out which is why he's not as likelly to do much outside..........I bravely need to starve him and knock off about 100 pounds off his bones! <g> talk to ya later, will send pics............
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it gets dappled aestern sun in the morning thru the black cherry tree that has always been here and is huge and is the true point of the "shade" part of the two gardens. It gets hard suothern sun and indirect scorchin western sunlight and droops and sulks in the heat. Also but once the worst of the heat is past and dusk is approaching, it perks up wodnerfully. I tend to pamper it when we have drouyght like last year. It would droop and I'd water it in the late afternoon. If you want to try it, plant it on your south-western spot in a sheltered area where it will get some encouragingly dappled shade to help it thru heat.
