Aromatherapy

About a week or two after the aroma of autumn olive fades, up comes the smell of wild roses. Usually it is borne on a southwest breeze on a warm morning right through the door and up my nose. Even though I SEE the flowers, the aroma always catches me by surprise. And then it is everywhere, like Saturday morning when I was riding my bike to Farmer’s Market. I must have smelled this smell as a child because on Saturday when I was riding my bike I had one of those olfactory moments that took me, or my amygdala, to a warm early summer when school was just out and the joy of an entire summer stretched before me. Suddenly, before I am quite conscious of the aroma, I am in that place and that feeling without knowing quite how I got there.

I had that same sense when I was spreading straw on the asparagus bed. The aroma took me back to when as a young girl I owned and cared for a burro named Pixie. Cleaning his stall and spreading fresh straw was part of the daily chore routine. Memories of that time are not at all in my conscious thoughts, but the smell of straw brings it all back. No wonder it takes me so long to get things done in the garden … I’m off time traveling and don’t even know it.

So back to the wild roses. There is a downside. This wild rose bush (perhaps a not too distant cousin of the trumpet vine) is taking over the yard. I don’t know HOW we missed it, but last year we looked up and this bush had climbed up a spruce tree pretty much killing the northeast side of it and was resting comfortably on top of some wild viburnum choking them as well. Hunter took on this monster in the spring and removed large portions of it to the brush pile with a promise to finish the job this fall. But I must say I would miss this aromatherapy just outside my door.