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| Not feeling very articulate this morning, but have been thinking a lot lately about fragrance, and the effect it has on me and apparently on others. And thought it would be interesting to try to converse with the ultimate connoisseurs of fragrance in words, on something that seems to transcend words.
I had my nose in Stainless Steel, Chrysler Imperial, Double Delight, Elle, Twilight Zone, Fragrant Cloud, Japanese Honeysuckle, and Star Jasmine this morning. As I imbibe each one, I'm just not sure how to quantify or qualify what I feel. The pleasure is so intense. Unlike something we can see and stare at, or hear and listen to over and over again - and even touch which to me is quantifiable and repeatable - fragrance is so ... so fleeting, so transient, so intangible. I strive to continually add awesome fragrances to the garden. I sniff and sniff, but can never seem to sniff enough (garden perversion?) I have the most difficult time describing what I smell. And unlike other senses where it seems people sense the same things in similar ways, fragrance also seems to be perceived so ... individually. How do you describe that hypnotic quality of fragrance. What is it that drives us to seek it out? What is it's magic?
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Follow-Up Postings:
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| For example: I go out day after day, week after week, month after month and do my best to figure out why people say that Marie Pavie is fragrant. One of these days I'm gonna hyperventilate and pass out in the pathway. She's completely neutral to my nose, and has no other saving graces to combat her lack of fragrance....boring boring boring....soon she will be relegated to the useless rose section of the property... |
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| Roses have the most delightful fragrance. It is hard, perhaps even impossible, to describe the different impressions and stimulation of the senses with out having a common point of reference, the same or at least a similar experience. Fragrances can lift us, refresh us, remind us of times past; there is a lot of reverberations to explore to borrow something I read by Gaston Bachelard. Phenomenology is a great inspiration for exploring some thing like the fragrance of roses. Like you mention the old red hybrid teas have exceptional fragrance, like Mr Lincoln, Etoile de Hollande, Crimson Glory. I have a few Hybrid Perpetual on the top list of fragrances too, Empereur de Maroc, Souvenir d'Alphonse Lavall�e. Blue Moon has a weird color but the lightest freshest fragrance, different from the red HTs and HPs. Albas like Maiden's Blush and Felicite Parmentier have different notes again, but worth growing just for the fragrance. I also think that La France is worth growing just for the fragrance; and Soleil d'Or, even if it needs a lot of fuzz to stay half healthy. SdO is a bit like raspberries in a way. |
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- Posted by KSGreenman 6a (My Page) on Sat, Jun 2, 12 at 18:06
| I have to admit that when I shopped for roses, the first thing I did was search whichever site I was on for the roses that had the highest fragrance rating. This led me to purchase several I would never have even looked at without this, like Pink Chiffon and Geranium Red. But it is true that wheras some roses have a consistant and wonderful fragrance, for others it is very fleeting or only occasional. When Marie Pavie first bloomed for me, the very first blossom I plucked had one of the most delicious fragrances I have smelled. I carried the rose around with me all morning to smell it. But at noon of the same day when I wished to share the fragrance with others, none of the other blossoms of the rose that had opened had any fragrance. In the two weeks since, I have smelled the wondrous fragrance maybe twice more, and I check the rose every time I walk by it. Try smelling just-opened blossoms in the early morning--that seems to work best. Firefighter, Gernaium Red, and Julia Child all seem to have a very consistant and permanent fragrance, as does the disease-ridden Overnight Scentsation when she's strong enough to bloom. Gruss an Aachen is the one I find most changeable--roses that open at the same time on the same bush will have different fragrances--not just intensisty, but a different quality/type of fragrance as well. Blossoms without scent that I have picked and put in a vase had fragrance in the vase a few hours later. I have noticed that some roses only have fragrance if you put your nose right in the stamens--Paradise and the mini-flora Sleeping Beauty fit into that category. While we are on this subject, the only reason I bought the rose Love's Promise was because of a very poetic description of it and its fragrance posted by someone over on the HMF website. Unfortunately, like Landlady's Marie Pavie, I have yet to detect any fragrance whatsoever from it. Since the blossoms, though not the growth habit, are almost identical to the very fragrant Firefighter, I will probably give it away if I don't find a way to detect its fragrance. So, if anybody out there has this rose and could tell me the best time of day/ temperature/ stage of bloom it has the best odor I would really appreciate it. Thanks! |
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| Thanks, KSGreenman, I will go out first thing tomorrow and see if Marie struts her fragrance stuff then. Geranium Red is also one of my favorites...no disease, gorgeous color, constant fragrance....!!!! Perfect !!! |
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- Posted by flaurabunda 6a, Central IL (My Page) on Sat, Jun 2, 12 at 21:16
| Fragrance is tied so strongly to emotions that it's difficult to nail down objectively. One person's favorite can be the nemesis of another. There are many fragrances, odors, or aromas that are specific and immediately conjur images in my mind. Cabbage? My grandmother standing in the kitchen over a boiling stewpot. Anise? The old candy store from my childhood with penny bubble gum. Wintergreen? My great-grandmother and her never-ending habit of sucking those wintergreen lozenges. I am very influenced by fragrance and will search high & low for the right shampoo, bath soap, etc because it has such an effect on my mood & my day. If I'm ultra-grimy from gardening or sports, it's gotta be the peppermint shampoo and soap. If I want something soothing on a cold day, I turn to lavender. If I want something to make me feel summery, then it's lime-coconut. I know that when I was growing up I always hated the bottled "rose" scents of toilet paper, toilet water, certain perfumes, and aerosol air fresheners. It just smelled stale, old, and not 'right'. I never imagined that the real fragrance of roses was so distinct and variable among hybrids. Every day, barring stormy weather, I'm out in the garden sticking my nose in bloom after bloom. I love catching the different nuances and seeing which roses are deciding to show off on any given day. I've noticed that the majority of my mauves are light & citrusy, the reds remind me of berries, the pinks have the sharpest scents, and the oranges have a warm, musky rose scent. Strongest of all is the single flush of Madame Hardy each spring, which smells to me of sugar, lilies, and ever-so-slightly of rising bread dough. The most enjoyable thing by far is coming home at night & being able to smell our rose garden. I love seeing people pull into the driveway, get out of their cars, and after their first breath saying, "Wow!" before they ever get near any of the roses. |
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| I actually wasn't intending on buying as many roses as I have been, but the first rose I bought for my new house was Zephirine Drouhine, and after I found myself sticking my nose in every blossom and just smelling until my nose could no longer detect it, I realized just HOW MUCH I loved the smell of a good rose. I can only describe it as 'the way roses are SUPPOSED to smell!' Its so much more distinct and wonderful than the cheap supermarket florist roses you see. Between Ebb Tide, Scentimental, and the above mentioned Zephirine Drouhine, I think I'm going to be hard pressed to tear myself away from my garden when everything starts growing up! Scentimental is so darn fragrant that when I was planting it the two spare blossoms just kept assaulting my nose with heaven! |
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| Earlier this year I had jasmine, magnolia and gardenia blooming at the same time in my yard. Gardenia wins, hands down. Even driving down the block with my windows open the other day, the wafting of all then neighbors gardenias was heaven. It is so sweet and strong that it is heady...it can make me swoon. The jasmine is nice, but if it's too strong can be a little nauseating. Magnolia is nice, but a bit soapy. I'd say honey suckle and gardenia are my favorites. Roses, I put in a different category. Their scents remind me of old times, my aunts handkerchief draw. My Moms purse. An old bottle of rose water I had. The sense of smell is said to be one of our strongest senses, the smell of something that reminds you of your past can trigger very strong old memories. |
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- Posted by KSGreenman 6a (My Page) on Sat, Jun 2, 12 at 22:41
| Hmmm..well, here is Kansas I must admit that Gernaium Red isn't exactly disease free. He does get the blackspot moderately badly--I spray with Copper Soap (supposedly it counts as organic) on a fairly regular basis, but if I go just a little too long Geranium Red is one that gets blackspot--not as badly as Soleil d'Or or Overnight Scentsation, but about like Ebb Tide (which is another very scentful rose, by the way). I've read somewhere that blackspot resistance is inversly related to fragrance--i.e., that the more fragrant roses have the worst blackspot resistance. I suspect this may be more true of some fragrance types than others, since I would immagine the various fragrance components have different genetic markers. I haven't noticed to much blackspot on Firefighter, but this is his first season for me--most of the truly fragrant roses I've had more than just this season do seem to get blackspot at least a little. Julia Child seems rather tolerant of it though, loosing few if any leaves and blooming straight thru it. SDLM wasn't very weakened by it last year, but this year it seems to be worse for her--her fragrance doesn't seem as intense this year either (:. Even though I've complained about Gruss an Aachen's extreme fragrance variability, I must admit it has been almost blackspot free for me, so it is probably a safe member of my collection. I suppose I could focus now on a slight variation of the original fragrance subject and ask if there a rose fragrance that, while present and detectable, are actually not favorable. I admit that I enjoy most of the rose fragrances at least a little, but some seem almost too bitter for repeated exposure. The Buck roses Country Dancer and Earth Song fall into that category for me. Also, the polyantha Anne-Marie de Montravel is always said in the literature to have a lily-of-the-valley fragrance. Well, it certainly has a fragrance, but it doesn't smell like any lily of the valley I used to grow. I went out just now the in the dark to smell it again just so I don't slander it _too_ badly--I guess I would call it mildly medicinal. It also made me sneeze, not something most roses do. |
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| FYI, over 430 chemical compounds go into rose fragrance (not all in every rose). Most roses are at their most fragrant first thing in the morning. The damask roses that go into attar of rose--one of the most expensive products on the planet--are picked at dawn. Humidity helps carry the scent; if you live in a very dry climate, don't expect fragrance to waft down the garden path. Then there's your own genes and the condition of your own nose. One of my favorites is Excellenz von Schubert. Knocks me ecstasy every time. |
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| Just about all of my rose purchases were based on scent. Yet, I can barely smell any of them. Only my Rotes Meer rugosa wafts scent for me. On the other hand, I find the scent of butterfly bush, lilac and viburnum to be intoxicating. |
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- Posted by melissa_thefarm NItaly (My Page) on Sun, Jun 3, 12 at 14:45
| When I was pregnant years ago I was working full time, and I would get tired. Those days I rode back from work on the bus, which stopped at the mall, I would often go to the fragrance counter at the department store and spend half an hour or so sampling scents. It was relaxing and I had the impression that something was happening on a profound level in my mind, at a level too deep for me to know exactly what was going on. As others have written here, scents are highly evocative. My own theory is that, as humans depend relatively little on their sense of smell, we haven't learned to edit and interpret odors to the same extent we do sights and sounds, and so they retain an immediacy that other sensations have lost. I too love fragrance in the garden and have in general a pretty good nose, which I'm glad of. It's a different guide to the world around us. My odor of the day was a sweet fresh honey scent I picked up a couple of times as I was working out in the garden. It smelled familiar but not in this context, and as I looked around I couldn't see any flower that might be a possible source. For now it's a mystery, but it was a good fragrance. Melissa |
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| Sitting on the porch with a favorite beverage in hand, dog sleeping next to my feet, looking out to a sea of colorful roses, scents of Michelia Alba, Gardenias, Arabian Jasmine and Brugmansias(at night) permeates the air...oh this is soup for the soul. Kasie |
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