Inhale Some Joy闻花香心神怡

Planting for scent is a recipe for curing winter blues.

栽培芳香植物可以治疗冬季抑郁。

On a recent overcast morning， I found myself rummaging among roadside weeds and litter. I was hunting for bits of my car’s wing mirror， mangled1 by nocturnal2 vandals3 in our supposedly sleepy market town. A passer-by， hearing my muttered expletives4， couldn’t resist noting that nothing of the kind happens where she lives—in Hackney.

最近一个阴云密布的早晨，我正在路边的杂草和垃圾里到处翻寻。我在找我汽车后视镜的碎片，那面镜子被人砸烂了，就是那些夜里在本该静寂的集镇上出没的捣乱分子干的。一个路人听见我喃喃的咒骂声，忍不住说她居住的哈克尼区就不会发生这种事情。

She did offer some advice， though. “Smell that bush， it’ll make everything better，” she said， pointing down the street to where a viburnum in full bloom was spilling over a garden wall.

不过她也真的提了些建议：“闻闻那丛灌木，一切都会好起来的。”她说着便顺着马路指过去，只见一株荚蒾开得正盛，枝杈越过了花园的墙。

The pop of colour would have been tonic5 enough， its dense clusters of flowers—pink， yes， but ranging from ballet slipper to flamingo—all the more improbable-seeming for adorning otherwise bare stems. But then I caught the scent： vanilla-drenched sweetness with a pinch of spice. It was like inhaling joy.

鲜艳的色彩足以振奋精神，密集的花簇——是的，粉色花簇，是从芭蕾舞鞋到火烈鸟的各种粉——不可思议地缀满茎干，那些茎干上除了花什么都没有。但是紧接着，我就捕捉到了那种气味：一股被香草浸润的香甜，带着一丝香料味道，就像快乐沁入心脾。

There’s something special about scented plants that flourish at a time when so much of the natural world is barely stirring. The viburnum’s heady fragrance was definitely heightened by a sky so rinsed6 of pigment that even Farrow & Ball’s wordsmiths7 would have been hard-pressed to8 name it， and by the silence of birds that sat huddled on leafless branches.

芳香植物有种特别之处，它们在自然世界波澜不惊时怒放。荚蒾花香醉人，在如洗天空和静默鸟儿的映衬下愈显浓烈——那天空清澈得连珐柏涂料公司的文案大师都无法形容，那些鸟儿静静蜷缩在秃枝上。

Though it isn’t as sharp as it supposedly was at the dawn of human evolution， our sense of smell remains vital. It’s responsible for some 80 per cent of what we taste; it helps us choose mates， whether we’re aware of it or not; and because of the brain’s anatomy， it’s powerfully linked to memory.

尽管我们的嗅觉并不如想象中人类进化之初那般敏锐，但依然至关重要。我们品尝到的味道有80%左右来自嗅觉；不管我们是否意识到，嗅觉都在帮助我们挑选伴侣；此外，脑部构造决定了嗅觉与记忆之间有着极为重要的联系。

And yet when it comes to planting， scent is all too often an afterthought—if it’s thought of at all. On many nursery websites， it’s impossible to search for fragrance， presumably because there’s no demand. We’d sooner select for form and hue， for pest-resistance and shade tolerance. These things matter but why not also consider scent？ Overlook it， and you’re depriving your garden of a powerful sensory dimension.

不过，每每提及植物栽培，气味往往事后才被记起——倘若人们想得到的话。在许多苗圃网站上，用香气来搜索植物不可能搜到什么，大概是因为人们普遍没有这方面需求。我们更愿意优先用形状和颜色、抗虫性和耐阴性来搜索植物。这些因素固然重要，但何不也考虑下气味呢？忽略了气味，就是剥夺了花园一个强大的感官维度。

It seems all the odder when you consider the popularity of fragranced products. Bin bags， highlighter pens， soft toys—you can buy them all with added perfume that’s invariably botan-ical in inspiration if not origin. You can even buy rose-scented loo roll. The Persian physician， Ibn Sina， distilled roses into aromatic oils using a heat chamber. It’s since taken more than a millennium to decode the biochemistry of the flower’s scent： chemists now know roughly 400 of the aromatic components.

一想到芳香产品的热度，似乎就更加奇怪了。添加了香氛剂的垃圾袋、荧光笔、毛绒玩具等产品你都能买到。即使这些香精不是直接提取自植物，其香味也都仿自某种植物。你甚至可以买到玫瑰香型的卫生纸。波斯医生伊本·西纳将玫瑰在加热室内蒸馏成芳香油。从那以后，破译玫瑰花香的生物化学成分整整用了一千多年的时间：化学家们目前已经获知约400种芳香成分。

Not that any of this is for our bene-fit. Plants give off scent to lure pollinators and if they happen to be flies， the resulting aroma can be an acquired taste. When Amorphophallus rivieri， aka devil’s tongue， first bloomed at Kew Gardens in the mid-1800s， it was said that women were knocked out cold9 by its bouquet of rotting meat and fermenting veg.

这并不是说植物的任何芳香都对人有益。植物散发气味是为吸引传粉昆虫，如果碰巧引来的是苍蝇，那这种气味对人来说可能就是需要慢慢适应才能接受的。19世纪中期，魔芋（又名魔鬼之舌）首次在邱园开花时，相传女人们闻到它散发的腐肉和发酵蔬菜的气味时突然失去了知觉。

Even the most pleasant of scents can be intensely personal， which is why planting for fragrance should be approached with a degree of caution. In his book Fragrant Gardens， H. Peter Loewer quotes the Tudor herbalist， John Gerard， for whom the scent that emanates from mock orange was “too sweet， troubling and molesting10 the head in a strange manner”.

即使说到哪种气味最怡人，人们也可能观点迥异，这就是栽培芳香植物时应该谨慎的原因。H.彼得·勒韦尔在其《芬芳的花园》一书中引用了都铎王朝时期药草种植者约翰·杰勒德的话，对他来说山梅花“过于香甜而奇特，熏得人晕头转向”。

Still， who can resist a lavender-lined path， honeysuckle scrambling over a fence， sun-baked Nicotiana and night scented stocks11 releasing their fragrance as the day begins to cool？ Don’t forget wallflowers， either—tireless bloomers， their scent is far punchier12 than you’d guess from their sometimes spindly13 shape.

尽管如此，试问谁能拒绝一条两旁薰衣草盛放的小径、爬过围栏的金银花、阳光炙烤的花烟草和在每日气温渐凉之时散发出盈盈芳香的长瓣紫罗兰呢？也别忘了桂竹香——它们不知疲倦地怒放，馥郁的花香远比窈窕的倩影更具冲击力。

Scented geraniums are another low-maintenance staple， conjuring up a wild variety of smelling notes from rose and peppermint to nutmeg and coconut. They also have the advantage of only truly releasing their aromatic oils when their leaves are rubbed， so won’t intrude unwanted.