Scratch-and-Sniff

Day 218: I wish I could include a scratch-and-sniff patch with this post to carry to my readers the marvelous blend of fragrances rising from my yard on these over-warm afternoons. While the lilac dominates, an occasional current of air brings lily-of-the-valley into play, both scents riding atop a deeper, softer layer of mountain-ash. When these fade, the Philadelphus steps up, its sweet aroma filling the entire neighbourhood. It does my heart good to see the lilac strong again. When I moved here some thirty years ago, it was leggy and feeble, having grown in the shadow of an immense branch of Douglas-fir. When the branch was removed, I cut the lilac back radically per the instructions in a horticultural manual. They assured me it would benefit from the pruning and be back at full strength in just a few years. That was far from the case! It took close to twenty years before it bore a single flower. Since then, it has been putting on a few new spikes each year until now, at long last, it looks like a lilac again.