Honeysuckle Rows

The place where I'm staying has some pretty good landscaping, even if the parking spaces are somewhat inadequate. A couple of weeks ago, I stepped outside in the cool of the evening and got a noseful of a fragrance I didn't recognize. It seemed to be coming from a rather large shrub with borad, dark green leaves and small white flowers. Didn't look like anything I'd ever seen before.

Last Saturday, I finally thought to ask the manager what those bushes are. He didn't know, but said he'd ask around. This afternoon, I stopped by the office to see if he had found out. Nope. But he said his assistant might. Sure enough, she knew. Turns out, they're myrtle trees(?). (Funny-looking "tree", if you ask me.) Cool. Now I know what to use for landscaping when I finally find my house.

During the conversation, though, I related the story of a guy I know here in Chattanooga who's originally from Utah. When he first arrived here and had a house built, he noticed this rather odd by pleasant fragrance, but couldn't track it down. No one seemed to know what it was. Finally, one day he was at a nursery and asked about it, particularly where he could buy some to plant around the house.

Buy some? You can't buy that stuff, the guy told him. No one sells that. It's a weed -- honeysuckle.

OK, so he's not a botanist. But he knows a good plant when he smells one.