This morning as I slipped out the door leaving Rose and Sugar inside the
house to jump into the car and go careening down the dead end paved road and
up the winding road to work to start watering all the plants at Lowes that I
can in 5 hours, I stopped dead in my tracks and listened and smelled.
Yesterday's scrubbing deluge of five inches of rains with accompanying ozone
releasing lightening has given the whole ridge top a moist, earthy smell.
There is no way to describe it, but anyone who gardens and who has to
suppliment the rainfalls of plants with their own moisture will tell you
it's emblazed into their memory. They have determined that most "deja vu"
experiences are triggered by familiar smells that envoke the memories. I
can attest to that one.

But as I stood there in the driveway next to the car, I started sorting out
the smells. I 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 walked back behind
the car towards what I knew was one of the aeroma's tickling my nose. The
Harlequin Glory Bower had started setting buds last week much to my dismay
but if I hadn't been so distracted and had stuck to at least partial entries
in my journal I would have seen that it was actually TIME for this limbed up
bush/tree to do it's thing for me here.

The leaves smell like peanut butter. An aeroma that was brought to my
attention after reading it in either Horticulture, Fine Gardening or Garden
Design. I can't remember and I ain't nit picking. Just that someone
identified 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 mysterious smells
were revealed 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 helped, but nothing could mask the
unmistakable fragrance of something close to vanilla. 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 creamy stars were popping open and releasing their
enticing smells of vanilla that almost 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
floral and amazing perfume that was unmistakable. I am gifted in that I
appreciate the delicate but strong perfumes of trumpet lilies and some of
the fragrant orientals. But I had forgotten that I had planted a Regale
lily over in the NSSG (not so secret garden to anyone unfamiliar with me or
newbie) and this year it has wowed me by producing it's first three
blossoms. So heavy they needed to be drapped over the pink butterfly bush I
plugged in next to the varigated dogwoods and near the emerging remnants of
Kerria japonica 'flora pleno' that had totally dissappeared on me three
years prior. I still miss it. 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 almost two foot in length that smell of warm
honey that will bloom long after the japonica is thru with sporatic spots of
yellow blossoms on and off all summer. I so hope it will.........updates
later if it fails or succeeds.

Back to my quick but intense summer scents encounters. The Regale lily was
unmistakeable, and I realized that among my olfactory experiences as I
walked outside, the first one actually was the pink butterfly bush and the
Regale lily.

The other familiar and 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
always 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 mentally noted but didn't follow thru with because I
knew time flew by when enraptured by the fairies and the flowers is the
minty smell of the bee balm that struggled thru the invasive Korean spirea
that is intent on taking the eastern 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 spring's arrival. I have lost the
"butterfly" white lilies I've loved for so long because of this sprawling
and eating of soil bush. Beautiful as it is, I can't allow it full lead
anymore. It will have to learn dicipline and boundaries.

There are other pungent smells as I would have worked myself thru the tangle
of plants and jungle towards those three lilies, like the Blue Egnima salvia
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 cleared woods spot where I
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 seeded plants that
trickle down the slope towards the dry woods. I am not pulling anything up
because I want to see who makes their way to my woods. This years surprise
was the loosestrife. Nothing 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 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 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 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
started without me. It was a pink open faced one resembline a pinker
version of a Star Gazer, or what they're selling this year as a "Mona Lisa"
but mine is tall. It gets at least five foot. And because it's not getting
enough sun due to the Pawlonia tree limb that grew over the whole side yard
this year, it wasn't strong enough on it's own to hold the seven blossoms,
so I draped it over the Salix limbs that are starting to bud out. Nothing
like summer lavender........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 blooming side, stand back, here's the run-down: (east to west and
northward)
Jackmanii clematis again, Japanese anemone, Russian sage, St. John's wort
hybrid, Regal lily, Glory bower, perennial begonia, Lobelia "Ruby slippers"
(more royal grape red than ruby), Pink sensations bee balm, various late
daylilies of interesting faces, Ruby spice Clethera, grape bee balm, Korean
spirea, magenta 4's, Helianthus, Heliopsis, 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 kissing cousin Stachys that is green puckered leafed and has
pink bottle like flowers rising up a foot above it. Seems the pink obedient
flower is getting those little corn looking blossoms ready. Bright eyes
coreopsis, moonbeam coreopsis, Tequila sunrise coreopsis with a burgandy
ring around each center.

Two colors of tall phlox that pop up where they want to, and old fashioned
Tiger lilies scattered in four places because I seem to remember seeing
fairies with bulbils running thru the raised beds and dropped them in odd
places. Cleome's in three colors, pink, rose, and pale pinkish white. No
white ones yet. One red castor bean plant against the chain link fence that
came from who knows where as I never found the red castor seeds Helen sent
me. Magenta asters, Bog sage, white obedient plant, yarrows of three
colors, Wine and Roses weigelia has three blossoms, and the Crispa spirea is
putting out a few flowers, but the Lime spirea in the fig bed is covered in
pink flowers. And the fig tree is loaded this year, I will be in ripe fig
heaven soon. First time in quite awhile for this and I await their ripening
impatiently.

Black eyed susans, a few left over triple Quanzo daylilies, and the blue
lace cap hydrangea is still making flowers. The improved Stella d.Oro and
Ruby Stella, a couple of sedums and hawortia have screaming pink and orange
tubes rising above the main plants on ethereal stems in the pots on the
deck. And the Bengal Tiger cannas, the old fashioned Indian shot green
cannas have red flowers, soon the dark one will have an orange flower
emerging. Two double Althea's planted butt to butt. The beauty berry under
the deck is 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 doilies for everyone's furniture, a few hens and chicks are
pulling up buds which means the mother's demise but those pink stars are
soooo neat. And that reminds me to check the Raspberry sedum for buds, as
the Kamchaticum sedum has yellow stars on it in the pot.

The Black Knight and lavender with orange eyed butterfly bushes, and the
tri-colored one I got this year is still blooming. given time it will
hopefully amaze me. I planted a Nanho Blue one beside the bed near the
woods. Purple 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 getting
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 plants.

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 returned
strongly when I wasn't paying attention and the pink butterflies hover above
the mound of burgandy leaves. Part the "hair" of the moonbeam coreopsis I
planted in my mom's concrete urn planter and then as an after thought, a
Commander Hay sempervivum reveals the coreopsis has grown thru and around
the semp almost obscurring it from sight until you see a flash of somber
burgandy purple/green and parting the fine foliage reveals the hens and
chicks and makes you smile.

A spagatti pot strainer planted in assorted types has revealed a persistant
sowing of columbine. I will leave it. Next year it will tickle me to see it
blooming in the pot hanging off the bent rebar five foot above the bed's
soil.

There are more, but my mind slips and I am tired. This is enough for now. I
hope you enjoyed my brief but rambling sharing 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!)
always yours, madgardener, up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler,
overlooking a stormy English Mountain, mist and cloud enshrouded Douglas
Lake in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36 (if it's not 36, let me
know now since I've changed to 7 instead of 6b)