Lessons In The Garden

The other day in the Temple garden I was surprised by wonderful scent. At first, I suspected the one of the various late-blooming daffodils. But when I investigated up close, they were innocent of fragrance. Distracted by other garden tasks, I gave up the search, but later that day and the days after, the sweet smell came back again. This particular perfume was new to me. It wasn’t the subtle cinnamon smell the mighty katsura trees release, that only happens in the autumn. It wasn’t the petunias which have their own intense and slightly addictive odor, you have to get quite close to smell them. This aroma was floating easily through whole sections of the garden and besides, the petunias weren’t blooming yet. Where was it coming from?

I’ve been trying to teach my grandson how to smell flowers. He’s just fifteen months old now and has shown a great interest in moving vehicles, dirt and flowers. Melissa and I have been doing childcare for him a day or two a week since before the pandemic began. Our bubble of isolation is the two of us and our grandson and his parents. I feel slightly guilty about this arrangement, while we are clearly helping his parents both be able to continue their fulltime jobs, the pleasure of spending time with this growing bundle of life seems vaguely improper at a time of so much suffering and dislocation.

Our lessons include instruction in two basic types of flowers: those you can pick (dandelions, violets and buttercups these days) and those you can’t (daffodils, tulips, pansies and flowers in other people’s yards). He’s doing pretty well with dandelion recognition. On walks he will go right for their sunny yellow heads and with one hand and great glee detach the flower from the stem. He then happily clutches one or two or three heads in each hand as we walk down the sidewalk (to the corner to watch and listen to the cars passing by on the main street.)

I suspect it’s the urgent tone in my voice that calls him back from the pruning of the other flowers. I realize that for him, it’s all be totally arbitrary. The small pansies that you shouldn’t pick are no bigger than wild violets that are fair game. So far, he mostly seems willing to take my word for it.

The smelling lessons began with holding him near a pot of sweet smelling pansies and then swinging him away before he could make a grab for a fistful of them. I was generally able to appease his tactile desire by dead-heading one of the spent blossoms and giving it to him for holding. Then I would lean in and smell the blossoms myself, then put his face right near the fragrant flowers. He seemed to like it, but a grandfather’s eyes often see much more of the brilliance and perceptiveness in his grandson than could be an objective outside source.

Now we’re into advanced training. Yesterday, in the garden with him walking on his own, I crouched down to smell a daffodil. Its smell was subtle but interesting. He then went toward the daffodil on his own. I feared for the life of this still blooming garden flower, but since it was one of many and nearly spent anyway, I took the risk. He crouched down, hands on knees, put his nose close to the flower and made heavy breathing noises. As his tutor in residence, I took that as success and gave him full credit for the exercise.

But back to the mysterious scent in the Temple garden. For several days it mystified and delighted me. Finally, I located the culprit. The delicious aroma was coming from clusters small white bell-shaped flowers that hung off of three or four inch stalks growing close to the ground. The leaves are much larger than the flower stalks and nearly hide the fragrant delicate blossoms. Lily-of-the-valley was and is the sweet culprit.

This invasive ‘weed’ that I am currently campaigning against turns out to not only produce mats of roots that choke off competing plants, but also gives off, for a short period every year and most arresting fragrance. With such a successful propagation by root strategy, I’m not sure why the plant would put so much effort into producing a smell. To attract pollinators?   To appease gardeners like me who would otherwise and still may totally eradicate them? (Though just to be clear, at this point I have no hopes of ridding the garden of these sweet smelling nuisances, just to limit their field of conquest to minor patches.)

Mystery solved.

Maybe next I’ll uncover some endearing and useful quality of mosquitoes. Who knows?

Daily Practice – On your next outdoor excursion, pick a flower that no one pays attention to and carry it in your hand as you walk. Dandelions and violets are in full season and quite plentiful these days. Also notice the scores of tiny flowers and plants that no one cultivates, that are happy to appear in random patches of dirt and in unchemicalized lawns. Appreciate the inventiveness, determination and beauty of the mysterious life force that continues with our without human intervention.