Sweet Inspiration

The fragrances of spring are everywhere in the air, luring even the most sedentary out of doors. Dooryard lilacs — deep purple, lavender and white — are just gone by and fragrant wisteria is brightening many Vineyard gardens.

Lilies of the valley plucked from their flower beds offer their sweet perfume. Autumn olive, aggressive and unwelcome though it may be in the way it takes over fields, is delightfully fragrant. And when grass and hay have been new-mown, there is a heavenly sweetness. Soon honeysuckle too will be a part of the mix — sweet to smell and sweet to suck on.

At the Polly Hill Arboretum in West Tisbury, the deciduous azaleas have an inviting scent as do the maroon blossoms of sweet shrub.

Vineyard lilacs and lilies of the valley, autumn olive and honeysuckle urge us to come out, come out into our spring fields and gardens and drink in the sweet fragrance of this season that precedes the humid heat and dust of summer.