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Sweetpea Enfleurage

Sweetpea Enfleurage
This spring has been unusually cold and rainy, which meant longer sweetpea flower season. Despite many delays between rain showers, waiting for the flowers to dry, I was able to collect impressive numbers of flowers for several recharges of the enfleurage tray. I think this is by far the strongest enfleurage I've been able to make. I am waiting for some more flowers to dry tomorrow and collect some more flowers for another couple (or more) of recharges before I move this into the alcohol extraction phase. 

Although the fresh sweetpea flowers hav ea very delicate and slightly lemony notes, the recharged enfleurage brings forward some more almonds notes. I think it will be really delicious. 

Sweetpea Enfleurage
Meanwhile, I have been able to make a very meagre amount of wisteria flowers blossoms, because the nasty beetles have eaten most of them. And I didn't have that many clusters to begin with. I'm afraid this was not a successful harvest - but it's the first season for this vine (I only planted it a few months ago). So next year will be better. 

With my enfleurage skills slowly picking up, I am sure I will be able to make broom enfleurage this year. Although it's just another one of the same family as sweetpea, spiny broom and wisteria - each has a different aroma and its own value as a perfume material. The spiny broom was super frustrating as something always went wrong and it is very about intense (and painful) to pick it. After I tried the second time and finding tiny bug droppings everywhere, I decided to give up on that botanical, at least for the time being. Way too much work and very little results. Really looking forward to work with the other fabaceae enfleurage results and composing with them though! 

My Rose Garden

The Bench

There is still no rose in site, but this is my soon-to-be rose garden.
It has a bench, so what else does it need (well, a few roses wouldn't hurt).
But firs I must do some research and find the exact roses I wish to plant here. First and foremost I am on the hunt for those used extensively in perfumery: Rosa damascena and Rosa centifolia. Then I must find some hardy hybrid tea roses and old English roses that would withstand the hot and dry climate here. And they must smell amazing and also have impressive looks. I would rather wait till I find the right ones rather than plant the wrong ones and waste precious plot space...

The area for the rose garden used to be an enclosed area where some of my tenants (without any permission) built for a little herd of goats. It looked like a disaster when they lived here, and it was hard to kick them out. The tenants that followed were super nice, stayed for many years, and took advange of the freshly fertilized soil to make a little vegetable garden. It only has  two small plots, and is sitting too far behind the house to be practical for a vegetable garden, in my humble opinion. So I planted a vegetable garden right next to my house (on the sunny east side next to the Pilates studio). And these two plots I'm planning to fill with at least six rose bushes. Then I will also add a bird bath or a sundial (or both), and climber roses in all corners. It makes the perfect, hidden, romantic spot to sit on; but also my preferred spot for  for sitting and meditating, burning incense, and enjoying a few hours of shade in the hot summer mornings, and quiet reflection in the evening. Maybe even a moon garden if I find the right mix of plants that won't overshadow the rosiness during the day.

Pruning the Orchard

Pruning my bitter orange trees

My mini fruit orchard has been sitting still for 20 years without proper care, and the wild foundation of the grafted citrus has simply taken over, turning all the trees except the grapefruit into a bitter orange tree. From a perfumer's point of view there is no harm in that, but I'd like to have some culinary variety in my village life, and food-wise, there is very little that can be done with bitter oranges.

As I begin to work on my little perfumer's botanical garden near my cottage, I had no choice but to do massive pruning on these trees, and leave only the largest bitter orange tree as is. One had 2 remaining branches of the original lemon; and another will be later on grafted to yield sweet, juicy tangerines. I also would like to plant a lime and a citron tree while I'm at it, but we'll see how much space there is for my rather long wish list of fruit trees. Scattered among this little orchard there will also be bulb flowers, fragrant bushes and other surprises.

Green bitter oranges

After all the pruning, we were left with a copious amount of unripe bitter oranges. Their smell is heavenly - much more floral and less flat than sweet oranges. So I've decided to peel their aromatic zest and macerate in 100 proof vodka (50% alcohol), and make my own homemade version of Cointreau liquor. Of course this is only the inspiration. I will really play with ingredients I have around and macerate some other herbs and maybe also vanilla to add more depth and interest to the vibrant orange peel.
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