Arlene Marturano

The best tour guide to any scent in my garden is my dog, Brittany. Her French ancestry coupled with the canine’s highly developed sense of smell makes her our scent scout. She brushes against the 12–foot tall wax myrtle, Myrica cerifera, releasing the pungent bayberry aroma. The undersurface of the leaves contains orange glands exuding oil. Wax myrtle provides the resin for bayberry candles.

As she wiggles toward the garden gate, Brittany smells a blooming shrub nicknamed breath of spring. The lemony scented white blossoms with protruding yellow pistil and stamens penetrate the entranceway. Several years ago a friend gave me two snippets from her shrub. They rooted quickly producing twin four–feet winter honeysuckles, Lonicera frangrantissima.

Rosemary, Rosmarius officinalis, has become the tallest herb in the garden growing four feet high. Deep blue flowers bloom all winter on my “Tuscan blue” variety. Brittany brushes against the shrub, her fur picking up an aroma that repels insects. We harvest sprigs for dry bean and chicken dishes and Valentine breads, culinary delights our guide dog craftily steals from the kitchen.

Brittany explores the many fragrances in the winter garden. Photo by Arlene Marturano Common rue, Ruta graveolens, has a tidy growth habit in contrast to rosemary. The blue–green foliage has an acrid odor. In days of yore, the crushed leaves were strewn on courtroom floors to disguise the smell of prisoners. Swallowtail larva feed on the leaves in summer. When Brittany walks through the sprawling bed of oregano, Origanum X majoricum, her paws become herbal slippers reminding us it is time to prepare spaghetti.

On her daily guided tours of the garden, Brittany zigzags around the trunks of a dozen eastern red cedar trees, Juniperus virginiana, screening one side of the property. She and the cedars have grown up together. Her coat picks up the cedar scent from the branches and foliage. She encourages visitors to walk through the carpet of blue cedar berries so they too will have paw potpourri.

The deciduous chaste tree, Vitex agnus–castus, features clusters of pungent sage–scented berries in winter mimicking the foliage and flower scent of summer. The plant is easily propagated from the berries. The scented camellia, Camellia japonica “Kramer’s surprise,” located off the deck blooms in January and February. The tea scented blossoms transform the deck into a teahouse.

Brittany pulls us through a walkway where crocus and paperwhite narcissus have emerged. She is on the way to the final and most intriguing spot of any garden tour for her. Each evening of her 12 years she has accompanied me down to the compost bin to watch me toss in the daily kitchen scraps. We cook up humus for all of the garden adventures yet to come.

Thanks to Brittany’s enthusiastic tour, my friends are satiated by scents from the garden.