So I’m walking through my mini orchard with my 5 year old daughter. I tell her to smell these cherry blossoms. Not a whole lot of smell to them. We walk to the apple tree and do the same thing. These smell really nice. My daughter was happy. Then we walk to the Asian pear tree and I pull a limb down and my daughter says, “Yuck, that stinks daddy”. Sure enough I smelled it and it was pretty rank. I always thought pear blossoms were supposed to smell good. I thought that only callery pear blossoms stink.
What fruit trees have the most fragrant blossoms? I have a plout and nectaplum tree on order. How will these smell? I know the nectaplum is known for having beautiful showy flowers.
It’s no coincidence that my pears attract the most flies. Asian pears do smell the worst of fruit trees in my orchard. Chestnuts are equally disgusting.
Great to know. Looking forward to the pluot blossoms. As for my Asian pears, how come Ibe never heard anyone complain about their stench? I’ve heard a lot about japanese fragrant pears smelling good and I’ve also heard people complain about the rotten smell of callery pears. I would have assumed an Asian pear would smell more like a fragrant pear instead of a caller pear.
On thing I failed to do was smell the blossoms from each variety on my 5x1 tree. the stinky one I smelled was either Nijiseiki or Shinseiki. I Can’t remember. I’ll smell them all tonight for comparison.
Funny you mentioned chestnuts. I think they smell like the Anheiser Busch brewery I toured a couple of years ago. Not a pleasant smell. But my Marine Corp Vietnam veteran buddy says that chestnuts smell like an “Okinawan Whore House” to put it bluntly. Haha.
I know I started this thread about my stinky pear blossoms but since we are talking about fantastic smells has anyone ever smelled a “sweet bush” or “sweet shrub”? I know it’s not a fruit, but the smell is intoxicating. The fragrance is so powerful I can smell it just walking through my yard 50’ away. It’s a shame the blossoms do not last all summer long. They are prolific and have runner going everywhere.
We have that here too Alan. It’s a real pain in the butt trying to navigate through that stuff. It’s like greenbrier only worse. It smells pleasant but not in the same ballpark as the sweet bush. It smells like a cross between strawberries, oranges, mangos, etc. Basically smells like a cornicopia.
I have a bit of that sweet bush here, speedster, but it hasn’t bloomed, yet. It was a rooted cutting from someone who passed on shorty ate that. I’m glad you posted that because I didn’t even know that it had fragrant blooms. I thought that the leaves were what was supposed to smell because I thought that she meant Carolina Sweet Bay, which it definitely is not. So, thanks for the pic and description of the blossom scent.
Since the discussion is moving beyond fruiting plants, who’s familiar with the osmanthus that blooms around October in Raleigh, NC? I heard some people thought it was sickeningly sweet, but it’s the most wonderful flower smell I can remember and especially nice at that time of year. It’s something you smell 50’ away. I planted something that I think is the same species two or three years ago (but I’m not sure), but it pretty much died back to the ground this past hard winter. In any case, I think the osmanthus I knew from Raleigh is about nearing its limits of reliable cold hardiness there.
I have peach, pear (both Asian and Euro), apple, cherry (both sour and sweet) and J. plum blooming. I walk around them everyday. I don’t smell anything much. I know my scent of smell is not the best.
After reading all your posts, I went out again this morning and stuck my noses in all the varieties that are blooming. I say both A. and E. pears have unpleasant smell. J. plum has faint nice smell so does Sour cherry (Danube).
I can’t smell apple, sweet cherry, peaches esp. from walking by.
However, showy peach blooms look the best among many white fruit flowers.in my garden.
Cousin, my backyard living area is surrounded by a wall of those tea olives (osmanthus) that is at least 18’ tall. It scents the neighborhood when it blooms in the fall. The bees love it. The other heavily scented fall bloomers here are the brugmansias. The tea olives are supposedly hardy to 0 degrees F. I don’t know, we’ve never gotten that cold. The only time ours have been harmed by cold was this spring when that late freeze assaulted us. That burned the tender new growth on one area of the plantings, but they’ve since recovered.
If you want, contact me in the fall and I will try to ground layer some for you. You’ll probably have to remind me to check them again in the spring. I used to do that for people all the time. Those things are too expensive to buy at the nurseries.
I was checking out some grafts (2 of 3 leafing out about a week after grafting) on a Honeysweet euro pear and just standing next to the tree I noticed an un-pleasant smell. Maybe my nose is on the too-sensitive side- it could be part of why I’m pretty picky on foods.
Interestingly, the smell wasn’t as strong near my 20th Century Asian pear, which I could only notice if I stuck my nose next to the flowers.
The Asian plums are the best smelling- and it hits me when I’m still 20+ feet away, at least when they first opened up. Apples are pleasant and I sometimes catch a whiff walking past.
Wow Bob…what kind of Asian plums are you smelling? Mine have zero smell, or so little I take little notice. I do note a bit of a musty odor with them…is that what you are talking about?
The Euros I have are 100X the smell and although similar, sweeter in their odor.
I think it was Satsuma, as that one had a monster bloom this year and opened first. It was well before my Euros bloomed, as they are in bloom at the moment. Some of the Asians are still in bloom, but I don’t remember much smell from them yesterday. I’ll pay better attention today.
Thanks very much for the offer, Muddy, but I think I already have one. It died back to the ground this past winter, but it is coming back. (That may be an indication that it’s not such a good idea to plant them here in the first place, but maybe it will gain a little hardiness with age and eventually get by. I saw 1 degree on the thermometer on my porch early one morning this past winter, but it might have gotten a degree or two colder than that. Officially I’m 7b, though.) I may send you some photos of my little tree/bush sometime, though, and ask if you think what I have looks the same as what you have.
I didn’t know it was a bee tree. As a beekeeper, that’s especially interesting, although I doubt I’d ever plant enough to make any real difference for the bees.
