Drunk in the garden...

and Talking to the Dead

I got drunk in the garden last night. But not on wine—on scent!

Around dusk, these chest-tall snapdragons started emitting the most incredible scent. I was stunned. I hadn’t known they were fragrant.

It’s starting to get warm, so that means Marc and I are spending more of the afternoon under cover rather than actually in the garden and we’re gardening later and later into the evening, aided by the helpful placement of the electric coop’s utility pole on our property. (Many’s the time I’ve grumbled about that pole, but not no more!)

So, a new routine is emerging, wherein we get to watch the moon rise and the stars emerge, sip a cocktail or two and enjoy the cool as we finish up the day’s work. And there’s another pleasure, a far keener one that I’m discovering: that of reveling in the scents of the garden as the turned earth breathes and cools and the blossoms release their accumulated store of heat and scent.

That’s right, y’all. We’re walking the fragrant path now.

I’ve always loved scent in the garden—even the really strong scents like paper whites. In the first Bellaflora, down by the railroad bridge and the quail farm, I interplanted peppermint and holy basil next to the front stoop. Every time my skirts brushed the leaves, a cloud of scent arose and surrounded me. The fragrant path indeed.

That phrase is actually the title of a very famous garden book, nearly 100 years old now, by Louise Beebe Wilder, an architect’s wife and garden designer inspired by the great Gertrude Jekyll to write for American gardeners and gardening conditions. But I must confess that I first encountered the phrase through Ed Rasmussen, proprietor of a late and very much lamented garden center and seed supply operation of the same name in Fort Calhoun, Neb.

Decades before I was able to buy a home and grow a garden of my own, I used to order the catalog just to read Ed’s prose and laugh—or swoon. Here’s a sample of his style, from the first section of his last published catalog in 2016. The subject is climbers and vines.

“Certainly it is a shame that climbers are not used more often these days when we suffer more than ever from the slings and arrows of outrageous architecture. For what plants are more amenable to soften the hard corners and camouflage the glaring errors of civilization? Especially so when as a whole these plants are remarkably undemanding as to their cultural requirements compared to the amount of beauty they bestow.”

“The slings and arrows of outrageous architecture”!! Lawd, the shade! But also the passion. As the kids say, game recognizes game, Ed, and you are the master. Wherever you are, just know you’ve still got acolytes from coast to coast.

… But back to scent in my garden. For the past few weeks, I’ve gotten fleeting whiffs of sweetness. Back in early March, when the carlesii viburnums were firing off their lovely baseball-sized blooms, Marc would make a point of snipping the pompoms to adorn my desktop and encourage my labors…

V. carlesii, sometimes called “Korean spice viburnum.” This is ‘Diana,’ one of 36 varieties Marc used to grow and sell at the Charlottesville City Market before the Great Recession stormed through our lives, bringing us eventually … here. And don’t you love this little vase? Marc rescued it from my parents’ garage.

I’d also get an occasional pop from the naturalizing daffodils I tried this year— ‘Scilly White’ and ‘Geranium,’ purchased at the Historic Columbia Foundation bulb sale in October and not planted until January.

Here’s ‘Geranium’ narcissus surrounded by violas, Japanese painted ferns, and ‘Ascot Rainbow’ euphorbia. Upon advice from Magnolia Gardens’ Jim Martin, I did not plant until January?! That’s what zone 8a’ll get ya.

But that was then. March, I mean.

In the six weeks intervening, while we’ve raced to complete the “bones” of Bellaflora, our collector’s garden, slinging shrubs and fruit trees, herbs, and perennials from the nursery into the beds as fast as our no-longer-40-year-old bones have allowed us to, the garden has been about its own business. Making soils from the lasagna sheets of topsoil, compost, and leaf mold we started layering last year. Making life—so many earthworms and spiders, so much mycorrhizae. And most importantly to me, personally, making scents.

Yesterday, we worked well past dark to get ahead of a rain forecast, and something crazy happened. As the clouds gathered, signaling the coming showers, and as the earth cooled, a virtual torrent of scent infused the air. I found myself sprinting between beds, trying to identify the source of all that sweetness.

I didn’t have far to look…

Lordy, there was scent from every direction. Clockwise, from left, Orange River Lily crinum, a Southern garden favorite with ritual meaning for the enslaved Africans who are believed to have brought them here; 'Eugene de Beaharnais,' a Bourbon rose developed, like 'Souvenir de Malmaison,' to honor the Empress Josephine; pink and burgundy 'Rocket' snapdragons, which smell like bubble gum; a lovely amethyst-colored Nicotiana (sometimes called Flowering Tobacco), grown from seed last year; an invasive honeysuckle vine I'm only tolerating because the hummingbirds love it; and more Nicotiana, this one a succulent plum color.

NonWestern spiritual traditions hold that scents are vehicles for communications from, or with, the incorporeal realms. One burns incense or sage to please the spirits, and they announce their presence with pleasant odors: a loved one’s cologne, or favorite dish, or flower. Even Catholicism has a version of this belief: it’s called osmogenesia, “the odor of sanctity,” a sweet fragrance emitted by the bodies of Christian saints, whether living or dead.

My cultural heritage is Gullah Geechee from the Carolina-Georgia lowcountry, and so these idea resonate. If you don’t know about us, we are the “originals,” one of three pioneer populations to weather Africa’s brutal adaptation to North America, and the deep structures of African spirituality are still present in the rituals of everyday life. The foods we eat. The way we seek spiritual counsel. The way we bury our dead. To name a few.

The traditions from which I descend teach that all of nature is ensouled. Rivers, springs, waterfalls, mountains, stars, of course, but even animals and the lowly grasses of the fields. Far from being “dumb creation,” all are possessed of the life force known as ashé, their in-dwelling spirits acting, when properly invoked, as sources of wisdom, forces for healing, or even messengers of the gods.

Of course, I was raised a good Episcopalian, too, so these ideas have from time to time gotten me in hot water. Once I moved a divinity student who sang in the choir with me to near apoplexy when I observed that the Rogation Sunday tradition sounded like it might have druidic roots. If that wasn’t bad enough, I had the temerity to confess to our priest that I considered praying in my garden in summer to be just as good as church. She didn’t take it well.

I don’t know what to tell you. The odor of sanctity is permeating my garden. If you’re looking for me, I’m going to be out there every chance I get, talking to the dead.

For further reading.

On the origins of the crinum lily, Jenks Farmer’s book is the go to source.

On the Gullah Geechee and our impact on American culture, you could try mine.