Following my nose

Rain again…in fact a ferocious storm, with sheet lightening.
Further south from here the storms were terrible and many people were flooded. Here it was short and very sharp.  
Afterwards it was warm. The air was clear and is almost fizzing, washed clean.
What did people say - you could smell the ozone? 

That combination of warmth and rain liberated some of the earth smells and the newly mounded earth on the potatoes, felt warm and smelt spicy and earthy.
Walking on up the steps I can smell apples, it is the green sharp apple smell of Rosa rubiginosa, Sweet Briar or Elgantine. This rose has single pink flowers in June/July…and is pretty enough, but you should grow it for the wonderful scent of apples that follows a summer shower.

Close by is Madame Isaac Pereire, a full blown dark, dusky pink rose with the perfect old rose scent; and she is so generous with that scent that she perfumes the air around the blooms; intoxicating.

On through the woodland paths and the deciduous azaleas are still scenting the damp warm air, and as I go further up the steps there is that honey scented area. I have never been able to pin down exactly where that scent comes from, but it perfumes the air almost all year….maybe I'll stop looking and just accept it.
Around and on to the open hill side and the birch trees have that glorious peppery tang.
And this week I have been putting pots of night scented stock into corners near to where we will walk in the evenings. In 2 weeks I hope to smell their wonderful sweet-shop scent of the tiny stock flowers when I drive in around dark. Aahhhh.

My top five favourite garden smells: (for today)
1. Balsam poplar
2. Lily of the valley
3. Honeysuckle
4. Old roses
5. Dianthus Mrs Sinkins (And a sneeky number six -  Sweet peas - of course)

M Davidson

Romping away after the rain

It is grey and overcast today, but perhaps we are through the gales and lashing rain of the past two days.
It was very cool first thing and I left the house with five layers, It is now after 9am, and I am down to four.

There was fresh feel to the air, but none of the wonderful after rain smells that you get on a warm day. Is anything nicer than the peppery smell of your birch leaves, a pulse of wild garlic from the stream or the lovely sharp apple scent of Rosa eglanteria. I will wait for them to return with the warnth we are all missing.

'This is the time of year when you loose control'. I heard a character on the Archers say that, when I had it on in the car yesterday evening. He said that things race away from you, and they do. It is not so much the ever present weeds; though of course they are accelerating; it is the lush growth.  Warmed in April and watered in May, many plants are romping away.

So I walk along a path, peering eagle eyed for weeds; wheeking out the seeding bittercress (I try not to hold botanical grudges, but bittercress comes near!) and than I stop think, "Were there primroses in this bed? well yes, when you look below the Geranium Jolly Bee and the Ferns, there are some yellowing primrose leaves.

Early in spring everything has its place and there is none of this exhuberant growth, but you have to adnmire it.
This is the time of year when you loose the heart to cut down and banish the Campanula lactiflora seedings and the just flowering Jacob's Ladder.

NO No No this is definately a case of less is more, the garden will be the better for less Campanula...but I'll just let it flower.

Some days I think if we went away for a year and returned we would find the garden populated by Campanula , Hardy Geraniums and Bittercress of course!