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Tennessee Gardening

What fragrant plant/flower is most evocative to you of Tennesee??

flowersandthings

18 years ago

What fragrant plant/flower is most evocative to you of Tennesee??

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Comments (10)

big_orange_vol_
18 years ago
That's easy! Datura.
brightside789
18 years ago
Perhaps this is a little simple, but honeysuckle... Although it grows other places, it always reminds me of Tennessee. I guess because I grew up with a yard full of it!
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I am the family gardener, but my DH sees plants he wants sometimes. He bought some snail vine plants from Bluebird Nursery in Clarkson NE a number of years ago and has insisted on buying more than one plant every year. Our blooms are a little different color than those in your pic, a bluish purple. It's not overly fond of our cool nights, and most years does not bloom as well as the ones in your pic, or get as bushy. This year, we have one or two sharing space in the ground with a morning glory in the front, and a couple in a pot growing through the trellis and onto our neighbor's fence in the back. She helped us poke it back through when it was growing fast in the warmth of the summer. This pic was taken early August. It has more blooms now, but won't for long, as the nights are getting too cool for it. I'm thinking it prefers not to be below 55 degrees. The blooms do smell good, but what I'm smelling more of right now are the moonflowers on the vine. Sue
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Any Tuberose, either the single or the double but the singles do have a deeper scent. Nicotiana sylvestris...the original flowering tobacco. Bushy plant about 2 feet across with broad leaves. Long stalks shoot up about 5 feet and are full of super fragrant, brilliant white flowers. It even acts like a evergreen here unless it gets waaay cold. Heliotrope Marine, try to find the taller cultivars and you will be thanking yourself all summer and fall. Great smelling plant....even the shorter ones! Confederate Jessamine....some call it star jessamine. Cannot be beaten for pervasive scent all day during spring and early summer. A true "what is that smell" plant... I do not know the name...it's call sweetbox. This shrub will absolutely embarrass you. I walked around the garden shop for 25 minutes looking for source of the grandiose odor that just made me nuts. Small...itsy bitsy flowers at the internodes and has nice dark green foliage to boot. Moonflower...great night fragrance and well into the cool summer mornings too....I love my java, newspaper and a moonflower. Gardenias, what can be said, as is the same for Magnolias. My personal favorite is the double petunia. I grow mine from seed and the purple piroette variety is just grand. With that said, petunias are unbeatable for quick color and fantastic frangrance. Just keep em ferted..... I think that bout covers it.....albeit these are just a few, asides this is this longest reply I have ever let loose here.....whew!
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Comments (95)
Gardenias are only difficult to grow in climates with dry air, especially dry climates that are very hot and sunny. I think it would grow better in Southern California if it were put inside a humid greenhouse during the Summer. The fruit of Quince is fragrant too, the most wonderful smell, very floral and almost a hint of violets. There's a particular odor within the aroma that is one of the elements in the smell of pears, I can pick up on, but the overall fragrance is definitely not like pears. I am talking about fruiting quince (Cydonia oblonga), not ornamental flowering quince. Some people used to leave a basket of quince in the kitchen to make things smell nicer, or even hang quince in the closet. I think grapefruit is very fragrant too, as well as Bergamot Orange (not really good for eating though). If you live further north you can grow Yuzu.
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fernzilla
18 years ago
Well I do agree the datura is certainly fragrant, but it
isn't what I think of ,when I think of the South. Honeysuckle certainly perfumes the Summer evenings, and
is definately a good candidate for most fragrant, BUT
how can you not think of our wonderfully fragrant Magnolias.
I always look forward to thier perfume scenting the entire
neighborhood.
Oh and let us not forget Jasmine vines. My yellow Jasmine
just finished blooming, and now my Conferate White Jasmine
is starting to bloom.
rizzir
18 years ago
I have a few!

Hollies
Honey locust

But these aren't native - they're invasive!

Besides honeysuckle...
Princess Trees (Pawlonia tomentosa)
Kudzu blossoms
Jan_Hobbs
18 years ago
I love the smell of Moon Flowers...
Soeur
18 years ago
OK, I've got a true native candidate, one which is a little obscure, but only because it's not well known yet.

It's Prairie Phlox, Phlox pilosa. Wonderful fragrance -- you walk by a blooming clump and it just transports you to heaven. Sweet without being heavy and overpowering, but strong enough that you can catch the scent on the breeze across the yard. Like lilacs, sort of.

P. pilosa starts blooming in late March and quits about mid to late July, depending on rainfall. That's an incredibly long season for a perennial. And it just covers itself up in bloom.

You can tell it's one of my faves. :) It's pretty common in middle TN, I believe, as I've seen it both in the Basin and on the Rim. It may occur statewide in suitable habitat (meadows that are moist in spring, 75% to 100% sun). I first became acquainted with this delightful species here in TN, so it's evocative of the state for me.

Marty
intimidator_3
18 years ago
Calycanthus, or Carolina Allspice bush, is blooming right now at our place, and its always one that I cant pass by without a whiff. Tall summer phlox and all our Brugs really perfume the joint up in late summer too.
Doug
karenmarie
17 years ago
For me Tennessee smells would include Gardenia, Honeysuckle, Magnolia, 4-oÂclocks, Mimosa and Privet. I hate Privet, but it sure smells good. IÂm sure IÂve forgotten some. I was thinking the other night that the air was humid with scent. It was so thick it seemed you would actually feel it weighing on your skin. IÂm a very scent oriented gardener. I like for everything to have a scent, either flowers or foliage.
agatha_panthus
17 years ago
I love the scent of your average everyday annual geraniums...I haven't been here long enough to associate a particular scent with TN. OH! I do have one! WILD ONION! We didn't have that up north and it overwhelmed me last summer.

I associate Michigan summers with the scent of fresh cut alfalfa.
dennisjmccoy
17 years ago
My vote is for honeysuckle. I hate the stuff, but you can't miss the smell if you got a smeller.

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