I just want to go on the record and say this post is total sour grapes -- and I'm with it all the way!

Yes, we cold-climate growers all secretly wished we lived south of 45 latitude, our decks and backyards filled with lush plumerias and brugmansias; tall michelia and ylang-ylang trees; fat gardenia and osmanthus bushes; rampant, everblooming jasmines and passionflowers --
but failing that, we cling to little pleasures like these.

Of course, our real secret weapon has nothing to do with fragrance . . . it's called autumn leaves . . . ;>)

Jim

Okay, at this one time in the year I am totally jealous. When I lived in the north I had a lot of lilacs and still miss them. Go revel in the fragrance!

not to steal your thunder, mare, but they are working on it!
we had lilacs growing well in northern alabama but i have not been successful with them here, a half-zone farther south.
others are reporting better results with some heat-tolerant varieties.
now, having said that, i hope they can develop a
cold-tolerant gardenia, osmanthus and michelia for the rest of "youse". :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: auburn university peony project

Hey, jeff_al. Nice pictures from the univ project. Tell me though, are peonies fragrant?

I re-discovered one that I planted 2 years ago but have not seen blooms ever so I cannot tell if it is scented or even what color it is/was. It was an impulse buy and I probably threw away the nursery papers. Would like to add more if there is scent to any of 'em.

hi luis,
i remember the herbaceous peonies that my grandfather grew were fragrant but i can't tell you the name of it (white w/ some red flecks). it is a nice scent, actually distinctive for me in that i can't liken it to that of another flower.
maybe someone from a better peony-growing area can give you some input.
now, i was fortunate enough to get a flower on my tree peony last spring and it had a strong, lemony fragrance.
it did not bloom this year. :-(

I was told to plant mine in full sun to maximize flowering (no less than 1/2 day sun), to plant it away from other trees/shrubs and to give it a feeding of bone meal or super phosphate in September (improve following spring blooms). Even then, some may take up to three years to bloom. And did I do any of that? Weeeeeellllll, some.... which is probably why I have never seen blooms and why I forget I have such a plant. Hee hee hee

We've got lilacs to spare!

Every year we get our receptionist another lilac for Secretaries Day, and plant them right in front of the plate glass window she faces all day. The "Sensation" lilac has peaked, and the "Josee" is done with its first flush. But the small-leaf lilac is going strong, and the "Nadezhda" is just starting with it's first season of flowers.

Mmmmmmmm.

Well, Jeff, I guess we'll trade with all y'all then! Is that a project to develop warm-weather peonies? They were beaufiful, but I couldn't figure out how to read about the project part.

Luis, some are very fragrant. There are other reasons why yours might not be blooming, though, such as being planted too deeply, so you might want to do a little nosing around.

Thanks for the good wishes, Annie, and Jim, my children think the secret weapon is s-n-o-w. Time to shatter their innocent notions with a big 'ol snow shovel, I guess.

Here is a link that might be useful: A & D Peony scents

LOL @ this thread Mare! Jim - I live "south of 45 lattitude" (Philly is 40.. heh heh), but I don't know if there's that much difference between up there and down here. :-p.

My Miss Kim and my James McFarlane are just starting to bloom now. This is sortof odd because usually my Miss Kim blooms before James and is usually coming off a full bloom that is waning before James begins, but I guess the wacky weather has compressed their bloom times.

My lilacs were done a couple weeks ago, now the scent in the air is coming from a patch of carnations in full bloom outside my computer room window - mmmmm.

I also have a yucca in full bloom which the humming birds love, and two more yucca are "in spike."

My passionflower vines, which die to the ground every winter, are already 4-5ft tall, but no blooms yet. Honeysuckle and datura will be blooming in a week or so, I can't wait!

here you go, mare.
this is some of the text about the peony project.
i believe(?) one of my co-workers, who is successfully growing a flowering peony, has been asked to contribute some of his plant for evaluation. he does not know the cultivar name and it is a division of an heirloom plant from his parents' home in north alabama.

Here is a link that might be useful: the peony project summary

I'm still getting blooms on my Lavender Lady and Beauty of Moscow.

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I've read somewhere that, for those of us in mild winter climates, not only can we grow Descanso Garden hybrids, which don't need the winter chill to bloom, but we can force dormancy in lilacs by keeping them dry for two months during the winter. When they come out of dormancy, they will bloom.

Clare - Beautiful pics. The double white one is Beauty of Moscow lilac, I have one too that less than 1ft tall. How tall is yours and when did it start blooming? Can you describe the fragrance?

We most definitely have lilacs! Wow! This is why I positioned mine outside my bedroom so the heavenly fragrance wafts into the bedroom when I have my balcony door open!

One of my Miss Kim blooms:

And my James McFarlane starting to flower:

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I had no idea how close you were to southern peonies and lilacs, Jeff, and best of luck on the project!

Clare and Jenny, those pictures have me doing a Pavlovian sniffing thing, I swear! Beautiful!!

Kandhi, the Beauty of Moscow has a lovely strong sweet scent of lilacs. It is about two feet tall and growing in a container. I got a very small start of it about three years ago. It gave me some very small blooms last year, and this year it has some very nice blooms on it.

Beautiful, Jenny!

Thanks, Mare!

Clare - I do like the big flower buds on yours and BTW, little do you know but it's your fault that my stephanotis is growing out of control now. It has bloom buds on it, although some may end up dropping off because it had been hard to get through the jungle to water it until I got some of the jungle outside and got 2 "U" hoops into the pot for the vines. I need to repot it up bigger again but want to wait until it's sortof done making flower buds. But it *knew* about yours so it wanted to compete... LOL

LOL, Jenny. Well, we're even now because it is your fault that I have so many lilacs growing in containers! I would have not thought that possible until I saw yours. My Stephanotis is not happy with me right now because I moved it and repotted it at the same time. It will recover, but I probably won't get many flowers this year. Good idea to wait until it blooms for you. It seems to resent transplanting -- at least mine did. Do you have tuberose bulbs? If not, you need them. If you like Stephanotis blooms' fragrance, you will love the fragrance of the Tuberose flowers.

That's what I've always heard about stephanotis so I'll wait. I did ID a container to move it to.

And there ya go again enabling. :-p

I was considering trying some tuberose. I've been experimenting with freesias and didn't really like the scent so I think the tuberose will be next, definitely! :-D

Glad to see your lilacs doing well. They only have a couple weeks in the spotlight but when the curtains go up, they certainly do waft!

LOL, Jenny! I cut my Stephanotis back a little, and it seems to respond well to pruning by putting on some new growth from the old stems. Hopefully, those new stems will flower for me later this summer. The Stephanotis, Bouvardia, and Tuberose were huge wafters last summer, and I loved them. I think you will like the Tuberose better than you did the Freesia. Freesia is nice, but it really doesn't compare. The nice thing about Tuberose for you is that it won't take up room in your apartment in the winter. You can just store the bulbs somewhere cool and dark when they have finished flowering and have died down. Ah, I love my lilacs too!

Sounds like a plan Clare. :-D

IIRC when I was in Hawaii (gee, that was almost 20 years ago...lol), they use them in leis along with the plumeria blooms and an assortment of other fragrant flowers like pua kenikeni and jasmines, etc (depending on the lei type). I would like to get a waft of them to see if I remember the scent.

jenny - Costco was selling tuberose bubls 12 pack that I bought in april and started them inside they are all 1ft tall and growning well inside. This week I am planning to move them outside. I had some from last year that did very well and I brought the pots inside in winter and left them in basement. Now I see my last year ones are also full of green growth. You will love the fragrance, you can find these in walmart/homedepot if you are lucky. I would say the costco bulbs looked much healthier. And per your suggestion i moved my white lilac into 14inch container and seems doing fine now and not drying out that often.

I don't even know where any Costco's are around here. :\ But I have seen bulbs at other places like Lowes, HD, etc (the Wally Worlds around here have no plant departments... :\). I may mail order some just to pick specific ones.

Glad your lilac is doing well. They are definitely worth it for those couple weeks of fragrance and the shock effect when you tell people that yes, you can grow lilacs in a container! ;-)