The Nose Report

Blame it on my Mediterranean origins, but to me a garden, to be a garden, has to smell good, and it has to smell strong. Wild marjoram, lavender, rosemary--the hardy, humble-looking plants that cling to the rocky hillsides above the sea and give off their pungent resins in the heat of the sun are the very essence of "garden" to me.

There is nothing like an arid climate to concentrate smell and flavor. In the relatively water-logged eastern U.S., plant life is more visually flamboyant, but pales in the smell department. And that's o.k. with me. I don't envy Mediterranean gardeners their need to water constantly. And at this time of year, a walk through my own slapdash garden makes me feel olfactorily satisfied.

Take the peonies, for example, which are at their peak right now. The previous owners of our house had planted them in a shady spot. Although they bloomed well, they had no smell, and I assumed they belonged to an unscented variety, possibly developed to avoid attracting ants. But I like the look of peony plants, even after the blooms have gone, and when I had to fill some space in a sunny flower bed, I transplanted those bushes. In this, their first spring in the new spot, not only are they loaded with blooms, but they have developed that divine peony scent. All they needed was a little sun.

In the back garden, the mints--apple, spear, orange, and melissa--are knee- and chest-high. I have to step on them to get to the water spigot, and the dogs are forever crushing them in their pursuit of the chipmunk who lives under the stone steps. But the mints forgive these maulings, caress us with their lovely cool smell, and keep on going. Thanks to them, there are no weeds (or much of anything else) in the back garden.

The chamomile has colonized the spaces between the slate slabs of the patio. At noon, when the sun heats up the stone, the chamomile oils from the hundreds of little daisy-like blooms float up to your nose. On either side of the back door, a bush of ornamental sage gives off its curious musky smell. I can't decide whether it's a good smell or not, but I pay attention to it every time I go by. Next to the sage is the huge semi-wild rose bush that I rescued from the edge of the woods and that rewards me with sweetly-scented pink blooms all summer long.

I planted two climbing roses and one rugosa rose against the wall of the chicken shed a month ago, and the rugosa--barely eighteen inches tall--is already covered in blooms. It's a Blanc Double de Coubert, and its flowers--the same morbid white of Southern magnolias--smell spicy. The two New Dawn climbers are also in their infancy, and also covered in buds. I like plants that try to earn their keep.

Finally, sheltered by the stone wall at the side of the driveway, my dozen lavender bushes have survived the winter and are coming into bloom. I'm not sure there's anything better than lavender for generosity and persistence. Pick it and not only do you have a basket full of scent, but the oils will linger on your hands for the rest of the day. Hang it in bunches to dry and it will perfume a room. Put it in your dresser drawers or in what the English so quaintly call the "airing cupboard," or stuff your eye pillow with it, and it will comfort and refresh you every day of the year.

Phoebes Et Al.

The phoebes are back in the nest they built last year just inside the overhang of the front porch roof. I'm glad they're making do with their old nest, because when phoebes build a nest they make a mess you wouldn't believe, and every time somebody comes to the house you have to explain about the mud and poop.

On a less felicitous note, another bird--I don't know what kind--tried to build a nest directly opposite the phoebes, between the carriage lamp and the wall next to the front door. This bird had made such a haphazard-looking nest, mostly out of dried-out iris leaves, that I thought it had abandoned the project--until we found a bunch of nest materials and two little blue eggs broken on the slate floor.

Speaking of birds, the hens spent their first night in the chicken tractor. This morning, when I let them out, the four older birds rushed out as if the grass and its inhabitants had literally been calling for them. The three pullets, however, stayed in the little upstairs sleeping loft, in the dark, peeping. I forced them downstairs and outside and they wandered around on the grass, peeping, trying to figure out how to get back in. Which they eventually did, and rushed up the little ladder, back into the dark.

It rained a little this morning, which is good for the roses I planted yesterday. I've never planted roses before, so at the nursery I asked for the toughest climbers they had. Climbers being the toughest of all roses, mine should be just about indestructible. I got two "New Dawn" pink ones, which sound hopeful, and one "Blanc De Blanc De Corbe," which sounds like a wine.

In the rain, the two little apple trees, which have been blooming their hearts out, started shedding some petals. I'm concerned because I checked them yesterday morning in the sun for pollinating insects and found one wasp, one common housefly, and a couple of ants. Where are the bees?

On a happier note, the giant hostas that I purchased at the Rupert village library benefit last year, and that I had given up for dead, have been thrusting their scary-looking spikes out of the mulch, clearly enjoying the rain.

Who says that nothing happens at our house?

Cooking Roses

I've got a bunch of roses heating in my cast-iron Dutch oven. They started out as the reddish-pink blooms of a semi-wild rosebush that I've allowed to grow next to our back door. It's a big, unruly bush, and the roses are nothing to write home about as far as looks go. But the scent is spicy and rich, and I cannot get enough of it.

I've been collecting these roses for the past couple of days, pulling off the petals and saving them until I had about a gallon. I put the petals in the blender with a little water and poured the resulting mush into my Dutch oven. And turned the heat on low, because if you let the rose mush boil, the scent will evaporate.

Eventually the mush will turn into a brownish paste, which I will allow to cool.

Then (and this is the really good part) I will rub a few drops of rose oil into my palms and squeeze and roll bits of the rose paste into marble-sized balls. I will impale each ball on a pin and stick the pin on a piece of cardboard. As the balls dry, I will twirl them once a day so they don't stick to the pins.

When the balls are completely dry and hard and shrunken to about half their original size, I will string them on a length of nylon thread and I will have...a rose-bead necklace.

(This, by the way, is how “rosaries” were made in medieval times.)

I made my first rose-bead necklace last summer. When I wear it next to my skin the warmth releases the rose scent up towards my face. It's different from wearing perfume, which in my experience smells fine at first but then fades. The rose necklace keeps on giving, and will last for half a century if kept in a sealed container.

But that first necklace wasn't a complete success. Because I didn't squeeze the paste hard enough, my beads have a sort of scaly texture, which makes them feel a little scratchy on the skin. Supposedly, if the beads are smooth enough, you can polish them with a cloth until they shine.

There are worse ways to spend a cloudy, damp Saturday afternoon than cooking roses. Lest it all sound too idyllic, however, you should know that over the years I have seasoned my Dutch oven in the traditional way, by letting it develop a patina of oils and who knows what. Which means that when I cook roses, their scent carries an earthy undertone of stews gone by.