My Mom had a bed of white lilies of the valley that I used to love smelling when I was a kid. The various day lilies, hostas, and bearded and Japanese iris in Mom’s plantings in the yard weren’t sweet-scented, but I loved them, too. A few purple lilac bushes — especially one near the kitchen door — was overpowering as it baked in the sun. A big clump of lavender in the backyard attracted little orange skipper butterflies, cabbage whites, and maybe the occasional tiger swallowtail. A few sweet summer phlox attracted red-and-gold hummingbird clearwing moths. One startled the pants off me the first time I encountered it as a kid. I thought I was going to get stung by a humongous wasp. https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/hummingbird_moth.shtml
Many years later, my own garden was visited by hummingbirds attracted by the tiger lilies and bee balm (Monarda). One day I observed an aerial stand-off between a green hummingbird and a tiger swallowtail. It wasn’t a dogfight per se, but the two of them were about the same size, and definitely after the same nectar flower. Pollinator passions ran high. 😉
I used to grow clove (aka Bath) pinks near my front stairs, and savored the vanilla-spice perfume. Those tiny carnation kin reminded me of the leis I loved. Nowadays most florist carnations have no scent, and the same holds for roses. I was stunned when a florist told me that the market no longer wants scented roses. All I could think was, “Why bother?”
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PakalanaPikake
April 30, 2020 at 10:19 PM
Aloha!
“King” Bennie Nawahi’s Hawaiians: “May Day Is Lei Day In Hawaii” (1930)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkmLVpGLYf4
Lei-Making
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDE8c8WM3ns
bbstl 🧹
May 1, 2020 at 7:33 AM
Wow! That is really cool! I could almost smell the warm California air. My air here is currently scented with lilies of the valley 😁
PakalanaPikake
May 1, 2020 at 10:46 AM
@bbstl,
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I don’t think I’d ever seen Bougainvillea used for leis when I lived in Hawaii. Not that scent is the only reason for using flowers. Vanda and dendrobium orchids don’t have fragrance, either.
https://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/plants/ornamentals/bougainvillea.html
My Mom had a bed of white lilies of the valley that I used to love smelling when I was a kid. The various day lilies, hostas, and bearded and Japanese iris in Mom’s plantings in the yard weren’t sweet-scented, but I loved them, too. A few purple lilac bushes — especially one near the kitchen door — was overpowering as it baked in the sun. A big clump of lavender in the backyard attracted little orange skipper butterflies, cabbage whites, and maybe the occasional tiger swallowtail. A few sweet summer phlox attracted red-and-gold hummingbird clearwing moths. One startled the pants off me the first time I encountered it as a kid. I thought I was going to get stung by a humongous wasp.
https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/hummingbird_moth.shtml
Many years later, my own garden was visited by hummingbirds attracted by the tiger lilies and bee balm (Monarda). One day I observed an aerial stand-off between a green hummingbird and a tiger swallowtail. It wasn’t a dogfight per se, but the two of them were about the same size, and definitely after the same nectar flower. Pollinator passions ran high. 😉
I used to grow clove (aka Bath) pinks near my front stairs, and savored the vanilla-spice perfume. Those tiny carnation kin reminded me of the leis I loved. Nowadays most florist carnations have no scent, and the same holds for roses. I was stunned when a florist told me that the market no longer wants scented roses. All I could think was, “Why bother?”