bed of flowers

I have been amusing myself with the art & practice of enfleurage, with those flowers that do not lend themselves to distillation. (Or with those flowers that do distill but just wanting another path of amusement.) So far i think my greatest success has been with the Hyacinth.

It's a long drawn out process that for me can take 6 months or so as sometimes i only attend to it when i think of it. But i am in no hurry; my comfort zone is in the slow lane through life.

First i melt a thin layer of palm fat or coconut shortening in a glass dish & let this harden. Then just add flowers. Thick, waxy flowers like hyacinth & tuberose i can actually leave for 2 to 3 days, until they get wilty. You don't want to give mold the upper hand. Less substantial flowers like the ginger lily & honeysuckle come off in 24 hours. In warmer weather the trays will need to be in the refrigerator least the flowers sink into soft fat/oil. I've done this with narcissus, easter lily, hyacinth, ginger lily, honeysuckle and tuberose. I'm holding over some lilac and some lily of the valley from last year that need strengthening so i'll add to them this spring. This summer i hope to add peony to the list.

 After the pomade is saturated; meaning when i have run out of flowers or it's season has finished, i scoop it into a jar & cover with organic grape alcohol. Then the jar goes through months of alternating heat & cold to wring the scent out of the fat & into the alcohol. I'm sure i could speed this part up but...i don't.

As you can see i don't always end up with much 'juice' but this particular batch brought us to our knees. To my nose there is no fragrance more exalting than the voice of  heaven funneled straight through a flower's throat and to blend it with anything else would be sacrosanct.  OK,  maybe a bit of subliminal ambergris to anchor it. Even though this particular one was still whispering on the scent strip after 24 hours,  they are too ephemeral / ethereal to create a sillage down the hallway. So i have arrived at the conclusion that the best way to injoy these is to spray them on my pillow at night and they have enough presence in the morning to 'wake me in the garden.'

princess prunus mume

I have a pet tree. She will probably spend her whole life in her pot so i can drag her into the glasshouse so i can behold her when she blooms. That's the best i can do for an alter. Not for her the rude lashings of rain and snow that leave her petals sodden & limp. As for me i am too selfish to share one flower's worth of that knee-buckling cinnamon-sugar-confection fragrance with the wind and clouds and even birds.

This is one of the rare flowers in the garden that i don't pimp. I make no attempts to wring the scent out of her by distillation or enfleurage.  I injoy her scent just as she is, in her own hour of the year.

winter tuberoses

We overshot Christmas. I say 'we' as i was driving. There were two plants that decided to throw up flower stalks in early November.  Instead of moving them into the warmer house when i lifted them, as opposed to the cooler glasshouse, i forestalled their opening. (You will find the practice of tuberoses for Christmas in the type of gardening books that crumble and lose pages if you are not careful while reading. Such ideas are antique and i think due for a revival.)

Even though i learned my lesson in temperature and timing, i am not going to mind Anytime a tuberose wants to bloom. Indeed, in the quiet aftermath of holiday hoopla, they garner more attention. The odd time of year that these are choosing to bloom only adds to the mystic and to have their decadent scent wafting around the house at night, when all other fragrance is with Persephone, is commanding. This is not background music.

Twas back in August when i started the tuberose enfleurage tray (the process of laying down flowers in 'fat', to absorb the fragrance) and each night i pick the blooms that have opened, at the moment of highest decibels and lay them down to give up their magic.

i'd say she likes the color purple...

a lovely, spot-on review of Afternoon Slant

by John Reasinger
as shared in the Perfume Pharmer by Monica Miller

*dabs some “Afternoon Slant” (Dabney Rose) to the inside of my right forearm*

image source

A soft and unassuming sweetness rises from my skin. An almost boozy warmth makes me feel as if I am sitting in a wicker chair, outside in my garden, sniffing a fine fruity brandy or honeyed cognac. The sun is past its zenith, but still pours its warm golden sunlight over me, warming me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I am awash in warmth on the outside, as the liquor warms me from the inside. Flowers droop around me, it’s so warm they have a hard time holding up their heads. Subtle spiciness laced through a sticky sweet treacle actually makes my mouth water and I lick my lips. A bumblebee buzzes lazily by me, thinks about landing on a flower to drink its berry sweet nectar, but decides to just keeps going. I am sure there would normally be more bugs flitting about, if it weren’t so warm…not humid, just the kind of day where you wanna lay about and do nothing but “be”. I close my eyes and let my head fall against the chair’s back. My third eye tingles and all about me I see the radiating waves of solar prana and breathe them in deeply. I see them shimmer and make everything around me seems vaporous. My own aura glows brightly exuding intense energy at a very relaxed vibration.

Content in my own skin and utterly at peace, I feel alive yet I am one with nature and the world.

Some perfumes take you places, some perfumes take you forward or back to other eras in time; this perfume just makes you glad to be alive and is perfect for wherever you happen to be.

Afternoon Slant would be acceptable on a hot summer day, but (for me) is even better on a cold grey rainy one, where you miss that afternoon sun warming you throughout. I sigh deeply, and have trouble opening my eyes. I do not want this to end…

thank you John!!

flower of flowers

the later wisteria

we have two types of wisteria twinning as only wild things can through the woods here at Hardindale & i was haughty enough to be miffed last year when i discovered the 2nd wave to be  scentless.  but it has a quiet grace the 1st wave lacks and comes with a color palette that only the French could achieve.  i like what Helen Van Pelt Wilson & Leonie Bell have to say about it in their book "The Fragrant Year";

"Perhaps the greatest glory of May is the Wisteria. Indeed we cannot imagine spring without it and whenever we have moved to a new place, we have always arranged for a Chinese wisteria 'Wisteria sinensis, right along with wallpaper and curtains."

indeed

exhaling May

May belongs to Honeysuckle. Each evening at dusky dark i will be wandering along the hedgerows gathering the flowers and if this doesn't usher me into sweet dreams then by thunder there are no sweet dreams to be had.