Bumping down

Wish I had one.

There is one at Aldridge Gardens that was intoxicating while we shopped their plant sale.

i was enjoying mine, too, until this past weekend. i had to cut a 20'-footer down to make room for home repairs. it will be back next year, though, and i'll just have to maintain it as a smaller shrub rather than letting it grow upwards. you're right though - it seemed to be especially full of flowers this year.

LOL. I thought this was gonna be a thread about fruiting female gingko trees...

Oh yeah! JUST what we all want right outside the back door...the aroma of dog vomit/poo. A very sick dog.

My O.fragrans is in bloom too, it's very nice when a breeze blows the scent across the yard.

I also have some native O.americanus which blooms in early spring, they're not nearly as strong as the fragrans, but still smell great when you put your nose to them.

I guess I'm the only one who can't stand the smell. It actually makes me sick when it's so overpowering.

Normally I love the smell of most blooming plants, just not this one.

You would be the first that I have heard say they don't like the smell, and the first to call it overpowering. But our human noses have personalities of their own, that's for sure. I cannot tolerate the smell of Confederate Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) unless it's from about a block away.

I remember having a student who had no sense of smell at all. He was at quite a disadvantage in my Plant ID class, where the odor of crushed foliage, stems, or of flowers can have a lot to do with identifying certain plants.

I do have an extremely sensitive sense of smell. I also tend to associate smells with colors and/or textures. It makes perfect sense to me (probably not to others) to say a smell is gritty or smooth, and another smell may be very bright red or dusty green.

For the last 34 years my job has been finding natural gas leaks. I love the smell of the odorant they put in it!

Strange world we live in, isn't it?

I actually like the smell of privet blooms, it's a shame it's such a noxious weed.

sundog, that is so interesting...about your specialized sense of smell. Especially the fact that you assign colors or textures to certain smells. I've read something about that, I think.

treehugger, you've mentioned another one that I can only tolerate from a block away. It almost makes me start to choke.

Down there where you are, you can enjoy the light fragrances of Carolina jessamine, oleander, sweet Indica azaleas (which I think smell like certain sun lotions), and others.

My husband and I were trying to describe (to each other) the scent of daphne the other night. From memory, of course, as it doesn't grow around here. It one of our favorite plant aromas. But we, as with most people, have to use OTHER scents to describe a smell....it's an exercise in comparison. Sundog's descriptions must be hugely interesting!

Oh yes, I have Carolina Jessamine growing up my pine trees in the woods, they do smell wonderful. They seem to need pines to really thrive, probably the dappled light.

I love the smell of indica azaleas too, even though it's one people hardly mention.