A Bunch of Non-Scents

The crinum lily is just getting prettier and prettier! Marcelle from Marcelle’s Crinums positively ID’d it for me. (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!)

Lisa gave me a nice excuse to display another picture of the crinum, the last for a while I promise! In my last post she asked if the lily smelled. Here is a little deep dark secret about myself: I don’t know. I don’t have a sense of smell. Never have. Strange hobby I have, huh? Like a blind person taking up painting. People seem to be far more fascinated about this than I am. I can’t smell flowers. I describe it as being scent-blind. Do you know how some blind people can see light and dark but little else? That’s about how I am. I can sometimes faintly smell smoke (although I usually see it first) and the alcohol in a bottle of perfume (but all perfume smells exactly the same.) Often, what I think of as smell is based more on the temperature and humidity in the air. I can still taste (which has never been affected by a bad cold), like sweet, salty, bitter and sour, and often my food preferences are based on texture as much as anything else. Since I’ve always been like this and I don’t know what I’m missing, I haven’t missed it. Most smells in this world don’t seem to be very good. Diapers have never fazed me – although I couldn’t detect a dirty one with my nose – I had to feel the weight of the diaper and check it often. I seemed to be better off than my husband who could barely change one without gagging. A cheap bottle of wine does not offend my senses, nor does an expensive one excite me. I can buy inexpensive candles. Bad breath and B.O. don’t bother me. If I have to have only four senses, I’m totally okay with smell being the odd man out.

As a gardener, let’s just say that I’m glad flowers look pretty as well as smell pretty. I’m in it for the visual and the emotional qualities. A beautiful garden just feels wonderful. I touch everything and have a lot of my plants wide, smooth or feathery leaves that I like to run my hands across. Thorns and needles are huge drawback for me, so you probably won’t see any cactuses in my garden soon. It probably explains why I like some many plants that are primarily interesting foliage plants. Fortunately, I live in an area that lends itself to tropicals. It also explains why I’m not super keen on roses. They are pretty, but I can’t smell them and the thorns make them unpleasant to touch. To add to that, they are difficult to grow down here without huge amounts of chemicals due to horrible black spot and insect infestations. The only ones in my yard are the roses my husband bought and planted himself.

So, back to the lily. I asked my seeing-eye nose, AKA my husband, if he would go out this morning and see what the lily smelled like. He looked up drowsily from the couch with one eye open and said. “Hmmm. No.” So I don’t have an answer for you, Lisa.