I have been inhaling my way through spring, almost drunk on the fragrant shrubs in my garden. Last year’s extreme pruning left me with fewer Lilacs this year but I am reassured by wiser gardeners than me that next year will be better. Tiny Carol Mackie Daphne, on the other hand, is exploding in exotically scented little blooms. The Daphne’s fragrance is more delicate than the larger, almost vulgar smelling Virburnum shrub with it’s heavy white heads of flowers. I made the mistake of planting these beauties all in the same corner at back of the house where we like to sit in the summer, imagining a scented garden. But it’s still too cool back there at this time of year and we rarely sit, as I’d imagined, inhaling the perfumes while soaking in the sun. Instead, I regularly venture out to this spot to get my scent-fix and lob off branches of blooms to fill the house. But after only a day or so, both blossoms and perfume fade. It’s not the same.
What is it about scent that is so evocative? I think it’s the ephemeral, passing quality – like time. We cannot keep it – not for long. There, the poignancy of spring.