Smells can trigger strong emotions. Jane Powers gets drunk on scents, and advises on how to deal with those other smells: nasty ones
One of my earliest garden memories is of lily-of-the-valley growing outside my great-aunt's and great-uncle's house in Minnesota. The perfume floating from the waxy, white bells was utterly seductive to my four-year-old nose. So much so that some weeks later, I broke all the rules and slid into the garden on my own - the Mississippi river ran deeply and dangerously at the end of it - to look for the clump of creamy flowers again. Inexplicably, they were gone; and because I was on a forbidden mission, I couldn't ask why or where.
Some time after, we moved back to Ireland, and the mystery of the missing lily-of-the-valley was left on the other side of the Atlantic. I know now, of course, that the flowers had simply finished blooming for the season. But now, whenever I smell lily-of-the-valley I am beamed instantly to the shady back yard under the oak trees, with the broad Mississippi glistening at the end.
Smell and nostalgia are closely linked: our olfactory receptors transmit nerve impulses straight to the limbic system - the section of the brain that deals with emotion and memories. In other words, smells bypass the mental speed bumps and roundabouts laid down by the departments of logic and analysis, and crash straight into the heart of the brain. So, even if it doesn't trigger a memory, a good smell can prompt an exhilarating and glorious bout of olfactory drunkenness, but with no hangover or guilt.
Because fragrant flowers provide such a - literally - sensual experience, I can't understand why some gardeners appear to have teetotal noses. Good smells in the garden are all the more exciting when they ambush you, hitting you over the head with an unexpected blast of perfume. Sometimes the plants that produce them are modest-looking things (in fact, often blooms which are bred to be brighter, bigger, or more complicated have little or no odour).
One of the most highly-fragranced flowers is night-scented stock, a self-effacing annual whose lilac-coloured, cruciform flowers wilt during the day (so, it's traditional to plant it with the unscented, but roughly similar-looking Virginian stock, which doesn't suffer from daytime shyness). But when dusk falls, the nocturnal stock's blooms unfurl and pump out their thrilling coconutty-clove aroma - a lure to attract night-flying pollinating insects.
Another unobtrusive plant - visually, that is - which is now waylaying garden visitors with its heady scent is Clematis tubulosa, a non-twining variety with coarse leaves and small mauve-blue flowers. Although it disintegrates within a day or two if you bring it indoors, it's nice to keep a sprig on your desk from which to take occasional restorative nose-sups.
In our mild climate there are scents for every season. If you have at least one perfumed plant in flower at all times, you are guaranteed a year-round source of gentle intoxication.