Bottling The Spring Garden

Everyone has a particularly soft spot for some types of flowers. Honeysuckle, clove pinks, sweet violets, jasmine and heritage roses are my greatest personal weaknesses so the spring has me wandering around the garden in a daze, transfixed by one picture perfect gorgeously fragrant flower after the other and of course photographing incessantly.

The weird climate-changed weather we are now regularly experiencing here managed to bring all my greatest favourites out together instead of in their more or less orderly sequence. It is as if all the flowers of spring had rehearsed a grand performance. Huge bushes of Belle Etoile and Mexican philadelphus are in full flower together with shrubs of ripe apricot scented Osmanthus x  fragrans. Cascading 'Gold Flame', 'English' (pictured), 'Firecracker', 'Halliana' and 'Giant Burmese' honeysuckles are dripping with nectar and fragrance (and driving our native honeyeater birds into a frenzy).

Climbing roses such as my much loved 1830s large double white Noisette 'Lamarque', softest apricot Noisette 'Crepuscule', milk white 'Autumnalis' and palest creamy lemon 'Claire Jacquier' are proving their Musk Rose ancestry by pouring forth the sweetest fragrance, 'Lamarque' with a decidedly lemon twist to its scent. The Tea roses are laden with large - and of course tea scented (the coolest of all rose fragrances) - blooms And then there are the Damasks and Gallicas and Centifolias and Mosses and Albas and David Austins and species roses and ... No, that way lies madness! We are also being drenched with spices from our big collection of clove pinks and I won't even mention the ancient Poet's Jasmine which has been growing in this old garden for sixty years.

It's such a delicious time of the year. If only the scent could be bottled. No-one does it better than nature. But if you are looking for perfume that comes nearest of all to these spring garden scents, among my favourites are the Durance fragrances from Provence. Their rose, lemon verbena (Verveine), lavender and jasmine single fragrance eau de toilette are so pure and true to scent, and I love Floris of London, particularly their Rose Geranium, Lily of the Valley, and Carnation fragrances. Don't store them indefinitely though. Indulge. These are so fresh they are to be enjoyed. Scent should always be stored capped and in a cool place. The high sweet notes are the first to be lost once the bottle is opened (a spray cap helps to hold the fragrance) but the more empty the bottle the more the high notes are lost and the perfume is subtly changed. Heavy sexy perfumes belong to the night and can easily overpower. The worst that can happen with these delightful fresh fragrances is a visit from a puzzled bee or a visitor to the garden wandering in circles to track down that fabulous fragrance.