GET GROWING!

FRAGRANT OR FOUL? TAKE YOUR PICK!

The fragrance of lily-of-the-valley is not to everyone’s liking!

By LADYBUG

The proverb One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, applies to gardeners, says my husband, pointing to the number of times I’ve stopped in front of items left by the curb by neighbours, drawn by pots or other containers that can be repurposed as pots.

I gleefully cart my haul home, while he shakes his head in despair. “Do we really need more? Where are we going to store them?” he asks. “I will find a way!” I respond. “Or I will give them to someone who can use them!”

One woman’s perfume is another woman’s smell could well be another saying that applies equally to gardeners.

Years ago as a novice gardener, I spotted a few little plants by the fence we shared with our neighbour, friend and my gardening guru, Dorothy. A few days later, they had developed the prettiest little white bell-like blooms that smelt like jasmine!

I pulled Dorothy to the corner and excitedly showed her the newcomers in my garden.

“Oh no, I am sorry!” exclaimed the lady who had gifted me several plants from her garden including prized peonies and iris. “The darn things crept over from my side. You want me to pull them out? They spread like crazy and it will smell like a funeral parlour here soon.”

I dissuaded her from hauling out her trusty spade and told her I loved the perfume. Dorothy looked like I needed my head examined.

Those flowers were lily-of-the-valley, and they did, indeed, spread.

I was reminded of that long-ago incident when recently, neighbours walked by the flowers I have growing on the patch by the walkway in our current home. Windflowers, lamium, tiny perennial geraniums... and lily-of-the-valley.

“Those are pretty,” said the lady. “Are they lily-of-the-valley?”

Eager to share the gift of fragrance, I held out a tiny stem for her. She leapt back as if from a poisonous snake.

“I don’t like the smell!” she said. Apologetically, but unequivocally.

Her husband added that they were from England, originally. That his mother used talcum powder from the brand Yardley and that he found that smell too strong.

“Yardley lavender!” I said with a laugh of recognition. “It was much-prized in India when I was a little girl!”

I pointed to all the lavender that I have growing in our yard that was getting ready to perfume the air.

“We love how they look,” the couple assured me. “But the smell? Not so much!”

I think of the lily-of-the-valley pot pourri Alexandra Risen describes in her lovely book, Unearthed. Obviously, she’s a fan. So that’s two for and two against, in my informal poll on the tiny flowers.

I wonder what a similar poll would reveal about paperwhites.

A friend gave me a beautiful clay pot one winter. In it was soil with paperwhites bulbs. If I kept it by a sunny window, she said, I would witness magic happen.

I did as instructed and waited. Several buds formed in a couple of weeks, and then one morning, I walked into the room to be greeted by the prettiest white flowers. But wait, what was that stink?

Never imagining that it could emanate from the flowers, I hunted high and low for the source. To no avail. Later that evening, I called the friend to share the news of the blooms and she asked, “So the smell doesn’t bother you, eh? Good!”

She herself loved the smell, she said, but some couldn’t stand it.

This was before the days of all-knowing google. Today, if you were to key in paperwhites smell, this is what you would read: Paperwhite narcissus are the cilantro of the flower world. While some people can’t get enough of their heady fragrance, to others they smell like a cross between dirty socks and cat pee.

And what of cilantro of the flower world? “To many, it tastes delicate, herbal, floral, and bright; to others it is bitter and soapy,” writes Monica Nelson in Edible Flowers. “Both are true assessments, as chemists have found specific compounds present in the plant that are similar to those used in lotions and soaps.”

One of my sons loves cilantro and will garnish most Indian dishes with fistfuls of the stuff. The other can’t handle it – smells and tastes like soap, he claims.