Does your garden smell?

[veggiechicken]

I've just bought a book "Led by the nose; a garden of smells" by Jenny Joseph (who also wrote "When I am old I shall wear purple"...........and I will, rary.
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/B...-srp1-_-title1

Jenny writes about the plants that "smell" each month in her garden.

I'm a compulsive rubber and sniffer. Can't pass the mint or lavender without giving it a fondle. However, there are also some foul smelling plants that I detest - like Flowering currant and Hedge woundwort.

Humour me please. Next time you're in your garden/plot, have a sniff around and tell us what smells you've found. Nice or nasty, it doesn't matter. Just describe them for us.

Thanks in anticipation

[Guest]

I can't smell anything my hayfever has taken over. I lie there is the lemon balm - lemon and balmy

[Small pumpkin]

Is it just me or is the smell of squash/ pumpkin plants lovely? I really like it. Smells fresh if that makes sense
Obviously the tomatoes smell lovely and the mints, sage & thyme. Really hope I don't have to describe what these small like
I don't like the smell of feverfew and herb Robert ( both have been removed from my garden over time ). Can't explain it, just don't like it. I know lots of people that like the smell.

[Mr Bones]

I have a keen sense of smell, Mrs B refers to it as a dogs nose (as in "here, have a dogs nose at this will you" to see if something's on the turn)
anyway, garden smells include lavender, sage, rosemary, hawthorne and the shed which is has a pleasant sawn timber smell.
Plot has herb Robert (also known as stinking Bob, no reference intended SP ) decomposing wood chips that smell of damp fungus. The main compost heap that smells mildly of rabbit poo/decomposing straw and the tool shed containing a bag of Vitax Groworganic that has a mixed smell of FYM and the rind of Stilton cheese (not unpleasant in its own way but I wouldn't like to smell like it ).

[happyhumph]

The sweet Williams are smelling lovely at the moment, and the bucket of weed tea......less so!

[Babru]

I've just bought a book "Led by the nose; a garden of smells" by Jenny Joseph (who also wrote "When I am old I shall wear purple"...........and I will, rary.
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/B...-srp1-_-title1

Jenny writes about the plants that "smell" each month in her garden.

I'm a compulsive rubber and sniffer. Can't pass the mint or lavender without giving it a fondle. However, there are also some foul smelling plants that I detest - like Flowering currant and Hedge woundwort.

Humour me please. Next time you're in your garden/plot, have a sniff around and tell us what smells you've found. Nice or nasty, it doesn't matter. Just describe them for us.

Thanks in anticipation

I just bought a second hand copy of the same book (it was in a list of gardening books you said you'd ordered!), but not done anything more than leaf through it yet.

If you like scented plants I can highly recommend pineapple sage. It is actually a salvia https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/92763/...eapple/Details.

I was moving a plant of it for my sister in April and a bit came away (hee hee!), so potted it up myself. Looked like a dead stick for long enough, but growing away strongly now. The leaves smell AMAZING. Not exactly pineapple, but wonderfully aromatic, really lovely. My sister says it grows about 4 feet tall, red flowers in autumn, and you need to plant it somewhere you can brush past it to get the wonderful fragrance. It's not supposed to be hardy, but it came through last winter which was plenty cold here in Edinburgh. A mulch ought to keep it safe.

I also grow scented geraniums. Some are a bit medicinal smelling, but you can find plenty that are just lovely.

I just got a very poor specimen of lemon balm from my sister, looking forward to smelling it when it's less poorly. I'd like to try lemon verbena too, though I know it's not hardy, so less attractive to a more idle gardener like me.

I don't have much of a garden just now, but I do have a few types of lavender in pots. They can smell very different from each other too. My local Dobbies has outside seating at the cafe, with a lavender hedge, been there a few years now. It is a very tall variety, probably an angustifolia, but unfortunately any label is long gone. I love to sit there as the perfume is great, not just the flowers but also the scent of the foliage, just comes off in great wafts.

I don't love all scented plants though. Flowering currant, yuk!

[1Bee]

The herby cucumber smell of cut comfrey gives me a high...

I like the clean, mineral, unmistakable smell of our clayish soil.

The big lilac Bush on the corner is going over, but I can still smell the memory of the blooms.

[jackarmy]

Love the smell of mint and basil but i hate the small of this, stinks of cat P

[Jay-ell]

Strongest smells on my plot are Black Currants, Lavender, Comfrey, bokashi

[nickdub]

I always consider the scent of shrubs, trees and climbers before I plant something. So far this year the major ones have been Winter-sweet, viburnum farreri , clematis armandii, apple tree blossom, clematis montana rubra, lilac, several roses with philadelphus just about to flower.

[Bren In Pots]

Just outside the back door its mint and lavender then in the GH its Toms. The honeysuckle's in bud so soon I'll have that wafting all over the garden.

[Thelma Sanders]

My roses are flowering now, they are beautiful to look at, but most of them just smell mildly of roses, nice - but nothing special perfume wise (despite the catalogue descriptions )
Exceptions are Heritage, Gertrude Jekyll and Madame Isaac Pereire these are the 3 that waft their gorgeous perfumes freely on the air, rather then me having to stick my nose into them
In the greenhouse
Evelyn rose- a lovely old ladies talcum powder perfume IYKWIM, and Gloire de Dijon - definitely a tea rose
3 different sorts of scented leaf geraniums survived the winter, Attar of Roses, Prince of Orange & Sweet Mimosa lovely when you brush/squash the leaves. Must try making tea with these..
I've also got a pink Oleander growing in there which has just started flowering, when I first go in it really smells of vanilla, but after a few minutes I can no longer smell it *weird*

[ESBkevin]

Because my front garden is now lovely frieble soft soil, it is the streets cat toilet! I am often removing the stuff but it still stinks over the lovely flower scent too ofton. The footpath at the back of the house is also a popular dog walk and yes you've guessed it, too many owners can't act responsibly and on a warm summers evening the pong is quite noticable to my delicate nose.
The plot has less flowers and for a short time each year it has rotted pig manure on it, but the rest of the time that earthy/veggy spell pervades amd makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

[Thelma Sanders]

Because my front garden is now lovely frieble soft soil, it is the streets cat toilet! I am often removing the stuff but it still stinks over the lovely flower scent too ofton. The footpath at the back of the house is also a popular dog walk and yes you've guessed it, too many owners can't act responsibly and on a warm summers evening the pong is quite noticable to my delicate nose.

Oh! That's not nice, is it?

[burnie]

Mine smells of Roses and in the evening Night Scented Stock