The garden smells

What makes the smell of fresh basil so intoxicating?

It’s a powerful time of year for delicious smells in the garden and it’s made me realise how difficult it is to describe scents.

Full strength lavender.

Cross the threshold to the back garden and there is a wave of gorgeous lavender for your eyes and your nose – two different varieties, both are beloved by the bees and both smell so good. Sweet and floral (of course) but also very strong and somehow powdery?! The other day, a humming-bird hawk-moth was out there with the bees, dancing among the flowers.

By the front door, there is more lavender and also roses. Some of these flowered abundantly earlier in the summer, others continue to flower. I’ve never properly appreciated the smell of roses before. Throughout June, there was a waft of rose on opening the side gate to enter the garden. ‘Rose’ is such a common scent in manufactured products, that my brain first associated it with those. ‘Hm, this flower smells like a rose-scented product.’

Rose, basil, rose.

Other gorgeous smells from the last few weeks –picking strawberries and raspberries and sticking my nose in the bowl to inhale the sweet scent.

Working in the polytunnel and emerging smelling of tomato plants, like every greenhouse you’ve ever known.

All the intoxicating fresh herbs – basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, mint.

There are other plants around the garden with wonderful unexpected smells. The striking smoke bush has leaves that smell of oranges. One of the lupins smells strongly of black pepper and although I didn’t expect it, it was suddenly familiar, like I’d known it in childhood.

Whenever there is rain in the forecast, I bring the boxes of drying garlic inside and there’s a gentle sweet garlic smell. It transports me to our old flat, where I would bring home garlic from the allotment to dry.

I saw a beautiful tweet recently (by @CryptoNature) that said: "Bats can hear shapes. Plants can eat light. Bees can dance maps. We can hold all these ideas at once and feel both heavy and weightless with the absurd beauty of it all."

Humans can smell memories. How absurd and beautiful we are.

A sweep of sweet-smelling lavender, often full of bees.