The November Garden’s Distinctive Scents: Potpourri from Frosted Leaves to Late Blooms
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
November 2, 1954
Dearest reader,
On this day, The Journal Herald (Dayton, Ohio) shared the wonder of potpourri from the November garden.
The November garden has her odors. In most instances, they are not so beguiling as those of spring and summer, yet they are far from displeasing.
There is the sharp, vinegary tang that rises from leaves, sodden and cold.
There is the odor of soil on which frost has laid whiteness; an odor, which seems different from that of earth newly turned in spring.
There is the pungence that rises from rotting apples and pears; and the heavy fragrance which issues from the chrysanthemum leaf and blossom.
Occasionally, a flower remains whose breath is that of July. Even though the hand of chill has pressed heavily on the garden, the sweet alyssum has summer perfume.
And a rose, spared, has a scent which speaks nostalgically of June.
But in the main, the odor of the November garden is distinctive, sharp, penetrating, and has something of that element of age, which cannot be associated with redolence but rather with a potpourri.
What curious miracles of endurance these November blossoms are, defying the chill's heavy hand.
Dear gardener, might you consider:
What is it about these aging scents that captivate us?
Is it the memory of warmth lost?
The quiet elegance of decay? Or is it that very "element of age," a testament to nature’s unwavering cycle, a fragrant metaphor for life itself?
As you tend your own garden this November, gather these scents like a potpourri—sharp, penetrating, and rich with history—and ponder what stories your garden might whisper when summer has long since bowed to autumn’s reign.
