Stop and smell the...

I am new so maybe I'm in the wrong place, but I just want to smell the earth! Not going to happen soon- we're getting 5 to 7 inches of snow tonight! I love the smell of tomato leaves and chrysanthemums,and juniper berries, though I don't think I'm supposed to. I love sweet peas, aaaaaaaaaaaaah :) and fresh lavender or any other herby dry-soil loving plant. Anybody like the smell of something they aren't supposed to? Or anything in the garden? I am jonesing for some fresh air!

I love the smell of musty old mushrooms and marigolds and compost! Yes, it's too early to expect to garden around here until mid May. Meanwhile, I've got little plants growing in my basement. Plant yourself some tomato seeds, Ivy. Even if they are spindly and not likely to make it, they'll smell good when you touch them.

My basement has smelled like "dirt" for a number of days now - first from my failed hypertufa project with too high a proportion of peat, and now, after potting up some daylilies and clematis today, from the potting mix I have sitting down there. I was a little put off by it when it was only the wet peat; but now I'm liking it. Usually there are some seed starts down there by now, but not yet this year; maybe I'll get to it over the weekend. But take Weez's advice. Even if it's only a few seeds, it'll smell and feel good!

Weezingreens, I've started some snapdragons, pansies, violas and sweet peas. I've never done any tomatoes this early but I'm expecting some seeds in the mail. I'll have so many (my eyes are bigger than my stomach-7 varieties and no place to plant them all) that I will put some in now just to smell! Great idea, Weez! I put in marigolds for the first time last year next to my front door - at first I hated the smell, but discovered that the bugs stayed away :) all summer with not one beetle in the house! Now I like the smell and will certainly grow them again maybe a little further from the entry. Maybe in the vegetable garden,too.And prettier ones. Weezingreens, you seem really knowledgable . Do you garden for a living? Or maybe in Ak you have a sustainable farm? It's very romantic to think of Alaska and I keep dreaming up different lifestyles for you.Are you an organic stay at home mom with a victory garden? A bush pilot with land bought for a dollar an acre? I'm probably being too nosy but it really is intriguing. Is it very hard through the winter months? I have trouble here in Ct. just getting through till May and June. Our weather teases us by a fake spring in March and April and then cold again till June. or even July. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mickgene, I've always wanted to make my own trough planters, but too shy to start. Keep trying! What seeds do you start this time of year in Linden? How soon can you put them out ? Any fragrant varieties? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To anyone ----I also planted an annual next to the front door called clerodendron ugandense that smelled really sulfury when you brushed up agaist it. It grew 7 feet tall ( in a pot!) bloomed once (I used too much fertilizer) and had the most amazing blue butterfly flowers on it. I would even like to smell that again right now!

Ivy, I have a log house on a small piece of land (couple acres), half forest, half yard and garden. I'd been dreaming of my own home for years before we moved into this house, and a big part of that was gardening dreams. That was about twelve years ago, and now I have a yard full of plants and a small nursery business.

I love to start my own plants from seed. I like to sow them, I like to watch them pop up under lights in my basement, I even like to transplant them. My light racks will hold 96 flats, and I start many more than that, so in early April, I start taking them out to my little heated greenhouse. Sometimes we have to shovel through three feet of snow to get to the greenhouse, but within a week or two, the snow melts of the sides and it is beginning to look like spring.

When you mention smells, it is such an amazing thing to wade through snow to enter a warm greenhouse with the smell of seedlings, and even some sweet petunia blooms! I heartily recommend it! By the way, try the Signet marigolds. They are a bit different, with a ferny foliage that smells of pungent lemon.

PS: here's the plantfiles entry for your sulfury plant: http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/1874/index.html

Wow! I think your home sounds wonderful. I live in Mystic, a small sea town in coastal Connecticut. We have a tiny house and garden (1/3 acre) in the old section of town. It's definitely picturesque, but hard to find enough elbow room sometimes. Our house is 160 years old and very small. I would love to have room for a greenhouse but can't bear to take away space from outdoor plants. We also have to consult the historic committee to do any construction if it shows from the street. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marigolds that smell of lemon sure do sound good! I love the look of the big round vanilla colored ones. Your house and life sound so exciting.The only thing I know about Alaskan gardening is that fireweed is beautiful! I got some seeds a couple years ago on a half price sale and not one came up. Probably a good thing - they might have taken over here in Ct.! Anyway, thanks for the lovely description of your life. It sounds idyllic, but I'm sure it is hard work!

Ivy,
I too love the smell of marigolds!! I also like cats whiskers which most folks say stinks but it smells lemony to me. I am already rubbing the leaves of my small tomato seedlings to get that sharp scent! Hope I don't kill them- LOL!! I have a yard full of Junipers trees [we call them red cedars here in the south] so I had better love the smell- LOL!! In hot weather, I love to pick a berry and crush it and dream of Christmas. Cedars were the Xmas trees of my early childhood so that smell takes me back.

I love the smell when DH cuts grass for the first time in Spring as the yard is COVERED in wild onions and all that fresh cut grass and onion scent combined smells so good to me. Ok, so call me weird- this coming from someone who loves to sniff her doggies feet!!

Berrygirl, I grew up in Oklahoma and about all that grew in our yard were sticker bushes and junipers. I love to crush the berries too! That fresh smell is sogood. I love the smell of my dog, and my little girls head and hair. Can't smell mown grass, it makes my nose run.

I love the smell of "Mr. Lincoln" rose and Sheila's Perfume" rose, lavender, lemon balm, mint, celantro, lantana, jasmine, and orange blosoms.

Hey, Grace! I'm with you! I planted lemon balm and lavender next to my back stairs. No one can go past without rubbing up against them. Unfortunately, I let my lemon balm go to seed last year. UH OH..................

Cilantro, mmmm. You are making me hungry.

In the spring, the elderberry bushes bloom with white flowers that have a lovely smell. We have elderberry bushes all the way around the perimeter of my yard, so a spring walkabout with morning coffee is wonderful.

That's what it's all about. That is a lovely greeting to Spring.

Many, many years ago, I used to bartend at one of the local bars. In those days, the bars could stay open until 5am. I lived several blocks away, at the time, and I walked home. In the spring, it was broad daylight by 5am, and on my walk, I could smell the elderberry blooms that were growing along the mountain sides, their scent carried by the wind. It was such a welcome smell. It cleared the stale beer and cigarette smoke from my nostrils.

My mother in law is from Germany, and when she was little, her mother would make pancakes from elderberry flowers. They would take a stem and dip the flower in the batter, and then cook the whole thing on the griddle. I think it sounds so beautiful and delicate and lacy.

I'd never thought of trying that, Ivy! I haven't even considered if they berries were edible. I guess the birds eat them. Last summer a customer came to my little nursery asking for Alaskan lilacs. Lilacs of any kind are a marginal shrub here, so I wondered if a new cultivar was available. She said, "Oh, no, these are wild white lilacs... they grow along the road." It finally dawned on me that she was talking about the elderberry bushes. The white blooms do have a cone shaped form on the stems. We both had a good laugh!

That's funny! They grow along the ditches and roadsides here too. I always feel a little silly looking at catalogs when I could rip one out of the ground, but I always wanted to grow two together- Black Beauty and Sutherland Gold. I saw a barberry like that once- purply red and bright chartreuse rounded into one bush. I suspect maples or smokebush would grow nicely that way too. Or it might just look like a mistake....

I've never even thought of cultivars! LOL! Yes, I can see direct opposites creating an exciting bed.

I never have quite enough room or nerve to be so dramatic. Then how do you blend it in with the surroundings? Or do you? Or I look at a restful blue and white garden and think "oh, yes. That's what I'll do over in that spot in the backyard" but I can't control myself and in goes the pink and the purple and yellow!

I just can't limit my borders the way I should for design purposes, because each plant is my new favorite plant and I have too many scattered ideas.

Your home sounds like my dream home Weezingreens, half yard.. half woods. :)

I love the smell of lilacs and peonies. I think bought are intoxicating to me. I don't have a lilac bush but I cut and bring the peonies in the house and the scent up the whole room. Another smell I adore is petunias in the evening. I put them on my deck and in the attic fan brings in their scent.. thats what I call a perfect summer evening. :)

Am I crazy? I never knew petunias smelled at all. I have them right outside my front windows every year!

Lilac has a very sweet memory for me. My mother and I moved to Illinois when I was 8. We had an enormous lilac right outside our front door My grandmother lived in Texas and couldn't grow lilacs. So every year my mother would cut armfuls of lilac blossoms, pack them in a box, and try to mail them to my grandma before they dried up. I don't remember if she was ever successful, but I think of how she tried and how much my grandma wanted to smell that scent again.

Oh! I just thought of someting else I never knew had a perfume- iris. I got some Codicil irises 6 years ago (beautiful pale shimmery blue) and when they bloomed, they had a wonderful grapey scent. I would just stick my nose in for about half an hour!

Ivy, some petunias have much more scent than others. The old-fashioned varieties are usually the most fragrant. I've noticed that petunias grown from collected seed always smell better... probably hybrids reverting to their parents' characteristics.

Weez, that makes a lot of sense ( no pun intended). The hybrids are great if you are busy like me and can't deadhead often, but they breed the extra surprises like smell right out. I recall a very light scent at night that I could never place. I thought it was heliotrope but realize it could have been petunias.

I'm trying calibrachoa this year, and the wonderful angelonia ( I can't kill it), and agastache and salvia varieties. My widow boxes should be hummingbird magnets this year. Surround all of it with sweet potato vine trailing down (if the squirrels don't steal them again this year).

Does calibrachoa have scent?

According to the PlantFiles, they are fragrant: http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/950/ I've never grown Mission Bells, but I've wanted to try them. I'm not familiar with angelonia, but I looked it up in the PlantFiles. Looks interesting.

Angelonia is my favorite window box plant. It blooms spring, summer and fall till I actually rip it out. It's tall and willowy, and skinny enough to jam in with a hundred other plants. Then it bushes gently around everything else as it sends out more branches. The one drawback is it is not fragrant.

I'm a bit limited in the annuals that do well here. If they like hot sunny days, they don't like it here. However, then angelonia sounds wonderul. Save me some seeds this fall!

Ivy1...What is kinda different about the petunias I have had is they don't smell much at all in full sun, but when the sun goes off them , they put out the aroma. I bought some of the ones at Walmart in 6 packs, they had them labeled something like: red, white and blue. That real deep purple one that looks like velvet is the most guilty of putting off a great scent. I smelled them individually last year, ha! to see which one was the strongest. Its also the same purple one in the Park petunia seeds they have in a collection they call Aladdin Mix. Last year I was privvy to my information and when I went to Walmart, I swapped out petunias for the purple ones. :)

Weez, I will definitely save you some seeds. I am not a veteran seed saver but I'm sure I can figure out how to get them outta there!

Kathys999, you are a smart one! I had those dark purple ones last year only because I couldn't find the small self-cleaning blue-veined ones from the year before! I bet the smell did come in through my windows. I also had fat purple striped ones but I really don't like them. They get so mushy and brown if like me you neglect to deadhead for the whole summer. It was all I could do to find any purple ones at all last year. I think I'll mail order so I get what I really want this time.