are you asking if they are gratuitously fragrant???

conifers are for touching.. breaking off and crushing a needle or two .. pruning off a branch ... that is when they are fragrant ....

conifer collectors ... are always walking around petting their plants ...

otherwise .... the only fragrance i smell .. is from the 3 inches of pine needles under mature pines.. after rain ... when it gets very hot ....

i cant think of a single plant in my garden which has an aroma when i simply walk by ...

reach into your concolor.. grab a couple OLD needles.. they will be falling off soon anyway ... and crush them in your fingers.. THERE IS NOTHING SUBTLE about the aroma ...

good luck

ken
PS: its a specific citrus smell ....1 out of 10 smell nothing [and usually NOT the smokers]... 6 of 10 peeps get it with a little prodding .. the other 3.. a slightly different answer ... crush a few ... and guess... and i will tell you if you are right...

I don't know about fragrant but I would throw Abies nordmanniana in there also. I am in Nashville and it has done very well so far. Beautiful tree also.

Here's a list of cold tolerance zone 5 Resin wrote for me (It's extremely hot and humid here during summer). Firs will also tolerate clay very well, fyi.:

Abies holophylla, A. recurvata, A. chensiensis, A. nordmanniana, A. cilicica, A. borisiiregis, A. cephalonica, Abies concolor  Resin

I'd add all noted above by davidrt28:
Abies koreana, concolor, firma, pindrow, alba

I'd also add:
Canaan Fir (natural hybrid of Abies fraseri and A. balsamea) - very heat tolerant. Often a best choice for grafting.

Abies fraseri.

A. bornmulleriana (essentially abies nordmanniana)
From Wikipedia:
"There are two subspecies (treated as distinct species by some botanists), intergrading where they meet in northern Turkey at about 36°E longitude:

* Caucasian Fir Abies nordmanniana subsp. nordmanniana. Native to the Caucasus mountains and northeastern Turkey west to about 36°E. Shoots often pubescent (hairy).
* Turkish Fir Abies nordmanniana subsp. equi-trojani (syn. A. bornmuelleriana, A. equi-trojani). Native to northwestern Turkey from Mount Ida eastwards to about 36°E. Shoots usually glabrous (hairless).

The species is named after Alexander von Nordmann (1803-1866), Professor of Botany at Odessa."

A. grandis, Interior Strain Origins such as Idaho.

Lots of A. homolepis growing here and at Arboreta in Iowa. Perfect condition.

Abies pinsapo for sure.

Abies lasiocarpa var. arizonica (I think this one's fragrant??)

I'd probably try A. squamata for the bark alone.

Abies veitchii should be fine. Do "OK" as Resin would say. I have several planted here.

Defintiely Abies magnifica as I've learned just recently.

Abies procera

Abies nephrolepsis

These should all be well worth a try for you guys. I suspect the guy in Georgia will have the best success because of a member on here named conifer50 who grows a lot of firs somewhere else in Georgia and sometimes Tennesee can be tough for some reason. But you can definitely grow Atlas Cedar. That I recall. Same with Deodara and libani.

Take care,

Dax

This not so much to answer the original question so much as to disagree with Ken (What good is a day where you don't disagree with Ken about something;^) The areas of N. Wisconsin and Upper Michigan inhabited by balsam fir do have a very distinctive and very agreeable odor at many times. I'm sure a certain stillness of the air is prerequisite making mornings and evenings the more likely times to notice this, but it's definitely there. Of course Abies balsamea is not well suited to the south so this does not address the OT.

I've found plantings of lavendar can also be fragrant all on their own sans manipulation. But these plants do not seem to sport cones at any life stage.

Good day Ken!

+oM

you are a hoot +om ...

so its your position that a SINGLE specimen tree will fragrance a yard ... if you happen to walk by ...

or are you saying that in your forestry experience... FORESTS of single species trees are fragrant ...

i suspect the latter ... since that is where you would find the 3 inches of litter i referred to above .... ergo .. are you smelling the live tree.. or the litter you are walking on and crushing and atomizing ...

all in good fun +om .... right???

ken

PS: you didnt expect me to talk it quietly.. did you.. lol ...

PPS: most things i learned were learned after saying something stupid ... lol ... its a good starting point... because it usually starts a conversation .... of course.. after they are done snickering at it ....

I knew there was a general issue of how many trees and how strong a smell one desires. So I knew it could seem like a stupid question - I didn't care! I don't want my front garden to smell like I've purchased cheap air freshener at Walmart and sprayed it all over the place LOL.
I just wanted to know if any of the heat-hardy firs were particularly fragrant.

I've never thought to make an indoor wreath with some boughs of my A. concolor but I'm kind of curious to do that now and see if they will scent a room.

Thanks for the replies so far...

"i cant think of a single plant in my garden which has an aroma when i simply walk by ... "

I can think of scads of plants that scent an area of at least 50X50ft (16X16m, Pineresin!). Just a couple Gardenia 'Chuck Hayes' blossoms are very fragrant. For a hardy plant in the same category, any of the various Asian lilies are very powerfully fragrant when a full-sized plant is in bloom.

hey!!!!

we are in the conifer forum.. and referring to said group of plants ...

if you want to go beyond those PLANTS ... add

daphne
mock orange .. aka philidelphius
invasive olives
mohawk viburnum
lilac

the list could go on ad nauseum ...

ken

PS: take an empty large coffee can [preferable NOT a plastic one .. duh]... put in some conifer cuttings .... and add some water.. bring barely to a boil.. then reduce to lowest setting... bingo presto ... aroma ... the tannins will stain a regular pot.. been there.. done that.. hence the disposable pot.. used to do it all the time at xmas.. due to fake conifer tree [no accounting for parental decisions back in history].... the more you crush and mince up the cuttings.. the more oils released ....

I think you've hit on an interesting point there - the heat-tolerant Abies by and large are not very fragrant, the cool-demanding ones rather more so. There could be a link; the volatiles that create the scent may be too easily lost in hot weather, causing additional stress. Something to do some research on, maybe.

"i cant think of a single plant in my garden which has an aroma when i simply walk by ... "

The strongest-scented foliage I can think of among conifers is Cupressus macnabiana (spicy-resinous, detectable from 20-30 metres at least [80-100 feet for the old-timers!]), followed by Thuja plicata (pineapple). Scots Pine, Coast Douglas-fir, and (shock-horror!) Leyland Cypress are also fairly strongly scented. Best scents are on warm, very humid days in spring. Among non-conifer foliage plants, Cistus ladanifer is very strongly resin-scented.

Resin

"I think you've hit on an interesting point there - the heat-tolerant Abies by and large are not very fragrant, the cool-demanding ones rather more so."

Yeah, I have been high up the mountains of NC and could definitely smell the Fraser Firs. Again though, there were a lot of them and maybe I'd need to plant quite a few to have a similar effect.

On the right kind of day, I have been near large plantings of mature Colorado Blue Spruces and could definitely smell them. However their odor is not quite as pleasant as firs.

Wait a minute...what was that I saw? A measurement in feet from Resin? Be still my heart! What could possibly be next? A properly punctuated paragraph fron Ken?

tj

Yes Ken, all in good fun, though actually, the way things have been going around here lately, (My home, not this forum;^( I'd settle for bad fun.

The place where this balsam effect was most noticeable was at a house we used to live in that was surrounded by roughly ten million acres of forest. That was in da UP. But all one had to do to enjoy it was take a good breath upon getting up in the morn. So it wasn't a matter of stirring up the duff.

Resin, on a slightly different tack, possibly the more fragrant turpenes and what not associated with cold-hardiness somehow? Just more conjecture.

I'd be very remiss not to mention the, in my opinion, delightful smell amongst the N. white cedars-Thuja occidentalis-wherever groves of that plant occur, like on my land. Once again, more noticeable when conditions are right.

Sweet topic.........+oM

ken_adrian, I can smell my Green Giant arbs' within a foot or so w/o touching (in the summer). Brushing them alittle brings it out quite a bit more.

If just relating to fragrance, Juniperus scopulorum 'Tollenson's Weeping' basically stinks up the place with it's musky smell.

Non-coniferous foliage of note is Cistus ladanifer (just backing up Resin as I've had them in the yard) and Alnus rhombifolia with pleasant sweet odors.

Barbara

Tsuga .... naw.. no punctuation.. but i capitalized your name... lol

and if resin will convert for us.. i may have to rethink converting for him ... hmmm ...

beng.. really .... i have about 75 GG... never noticed ... but always grab a handful to crush ... will have to check it out...

if i had to guess ... all of you who claim the fragrance [i do believe you]... you are in much more humid areas ... though i get humidity in summer.. on my dry sand ... i havent noticed fragrance ... hmmm

maybe i need to get drunk .. and go lay under some of my plants .. lol

ken

Old thread but did someone say Grand Firs? I would really love to get more info on them in more hot and humid areas. I love them so much and since they grow so quick and are so fragrant I would happily add it to my yard collection if I got more info.

Wow, what amazing zombie thread bumping skills you have!

I would in reality really love to know so I can get some inland ecotype seeds to germinate.

Also, is idahoensis the type found in the cascades? There is this very nice person on Etsy selling some and they are in the Cascades.

While this has been bumped, to address my original question...

I think if any fragrant conifer becomes sufficiently large...that fragrance will be noted. (no duh, right?)

For example, my Sequoia 'Soquel' is big enough now that the fallen needles give just a bit of a redwood-y scent. Alas because of seeming issues with that particular cultivar and the plant not really being where I want it to be anyhow, I'm going to be converting into redwood lumber soon LOL. It's stuck at about 16' tall, but the caliper (huge...almost 1' diameter) and width of it keeps increasing. It is engulfing rhododendrons that were meant to be under its shade! 'Atlanta' and 'Chapel Hill' don't have whatever problem it has and are growing upright.

I would add though that GG is spot-on in her initial reply. I suspect that for people who are lucky enough to actually live in a redwood forest, they go 'nose blind' to that odor. The same thing happened to me after a few days in Australia. I definitely smelled them at first.

Wow, David, I didn't know you had a redwood! The trunk enlargement seems like a "redwood" characteristic, just like I see w/my dawn redwood.