Purple Prose

I. Hate. Everybody.  Y’all ever have That Day?  I’m in menopause, so I’ve been having them a bit more often than I’d like – and what’s interesting is, I have no real reason to be all Hatey.  I think it’s just the weather, which is absurd here – careening from the minuses to the mid-50s and back again, all within 36 hrs.  And according to March, Mercury is in Retrograde, which is never a good thing……

but hyacinths are saving me!   I have 8 pots blooming in my dining room and 8 more just coming up on the plant shelves.  I only grow the purples since I find them to be the most fragrant.  But….what is it about hyacinths (and most Spring bulbs) …their scent is so elusive?  And, unlike roses and other Summer flowers, there is always the Dirt Component.  You know my adoration of Liz Zorn’s Violets & Rainwater, which combines the light sweetness of Spring violets with the ozonic splash of the first raindrops on concrete, with a ribbon of loamy dirt running through, like a pot of violets on a New York sidewalk in the rain…..(omg will you never shut UP about that, Musette?).  Hyacinths are much the same, in my opinion – I have never been able to separate the flower from the green stem – and the dirt.

What is it about Spring and dirt?   CBIHP’s Black March has that loamy, wet, dirt essence…..though I miss the flowers.  What is it about purple flowers and dirt?   Violets, Pansies (and some are stunningly fragrant), lilacs, hyacinths…all are improved with a touch of dirt.  There was this inexpensive, weird little wisteria scent (hang on, I’mo try to see if I can find an image ).  I can’t remember much of anything about it other than it came in an hourglass bottle and said ‘Wisteria’……squirrel!  While looking through Teh Google for that bottle….look what I found!   A wisteria necklace!!!  Lord ha’ mercy, isn’t this gorgeous?

Kelly Jones wraptillion.com

But back to the perfume – what is it about purple flowers?  I only like it when they have green & dirt in the mix.  Tom Ford has a Hyacinth but the hyacinth is fleeting, with the green and other florals taking over (it’s very, very pretty!).  I wonder if that’s similar to the anosmia that ionone-rich violets engender that they short-circuit our sense of smell (per Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses, one of my favorite books about smell)  – I dunno and you all know I am not about to play the academic here – what I do know is that all purple flowers do better with the dirt.  A little rainwater doesn’t hurt, either!

Leaving you with this:

greenacresherbfarm.com