Make it a scent-imental Valentine’s
This Valentine’s Day, what will you give to those you love that will express how you feel about them?
We have a recommendation that will blow your romantic socks off: flowers.
Old news? Don’t turn your attention away just yet. We’re talking about a specific variety of flowers: fragrant flowers.
When you give roses or hyacinths in bloom, you are expressing a scentiment — see how we did that?
The sweet scent of a living plant, or a bouquet of cut flowers, can fill a room with something unique that can’t be mimicked: life and breath. The aroma of plants and flowers is a reminder to the olfactory in your brain that there is life after winter.
Our sense of smell can move us in ways that other stimuli cannot. We may see beautiful flowers and enjoy what they add to a room. But to smell them? That is something else.
Here’s our list of favourite fragrant flowers, appropriate for Valentine giving to your sweetheart, your parents, your kid or grandkids:
Gardenia (Gardenia jasminoides). Purchase this as a potted plant. The creamy white blossoms are “rose like” in appearance but the sweet smell of gardenia is more powerful than most roses. In fact, you would likely only want to have one in a room, or the aroma can be overwhelming.
Buy this plant in flower bud to prolong your enjoyment of the blooms once they open. Keep it in a cool room and out of direct sunlight while it’s in bloom. Then move into brighter light until May when you can plant it outdoors in an east location — or under the shade of a tree.
Gardenia likes an acid soil; treat with garden sulphur. Hyacinth. Just one hyacinth bulb in bloom will enhance a room with a soft smell reminiscent of early spring. Look for purple, pink or white blooms.
It’s a perfect flower for kids since it allows them to see it change daily. After it produces a bloom and leaves, plant it outside in your garden or a container — and watch it bloom again next spring. Lavender. Buy this perennial plant while in blossom and enjoy the plant until fall. The blooms really do smell like the scent of lavender we’ve all come to know (go figure!) and after the bloom is finished you can activate its essential oils by running your fingers through it.
Lavender enjoys being petted. Same for the herb rosemary which, when you smell it, stimulates your appetite. Lavender and rosemary plants are widely available this time of year — for curbside pickup or delivery — at garden retailers. Do not over-water either plant. Place them in a sunny spot in your garden come May. Roses. Not all roses are scented. When you shop for cut roses, be sure to give them the smell-test if scent is important to you.
To extend their life, keep them out of direct sun and place them in a refrigerator or cool basement over night. Change the water each day and use the preservative that comes in a small envelope when you buy cut flowers. (There are likely more of these in your junk drawer in your kitchen.) Use them up: one sachet per day for a week or so.
You might be wondering why we make such a fuss on Valentine’s Day about giving fresh flowers and living plants to express affection. You might be one of those people who wonder about that; we suspect that the romance gene is not dominant. But we can help.
It is the nature of a freshly cut flower, a bouquet or a flowering plant that endears itself to you, the giver. Your love transcends time and space, it endures in the mind of the recipient long after the lingering sweetness of the scent, and vision, has disappeared into the compost (which, if it is properly balanced, has its own spring-like odour).
Your sweetheart will not have the thing forever, like a diamond, to remind them of you. They have the sweet memory of your gift. In that respect, diamonds and flowers are opposites.
Which is why they are both so attractive — and appealing.