College of the Environment | University of Washington Block W Logo
Library Home | Catalog | Calendar | College Home
Volume 7, Issue 11 | November 2020
The Scentual Garden by Ken Druse
reviewed by Tracy Mehlin
book cover: The Scentual Garden by 
Ken Druse"Green, resinous, camphorous, nutmeg, a scant suggestion of lemon rind." Ken Druse has a very keen nose. In his newest book, The Scentual Garden, he undertakes an adventure—as he puts it—to classify botanical fragrance. Druse wants to give gardeners and designers an expanded lexicon for scent that equals the rich vocabulary we already have for color, texture and form. It won't surprise anyone familiar with his other books that The Scentual Garden is "coffee table" quality, with heavy paper, lots of color photographs of plants in the landscape and of composed portraits of plants on a solid color background. It's pleasurable to simply flip through the pages for the Ellen Hoverkamp photography alone. However, once you start reading the text of this reference book you will ask yourself, do I get "nutmeg and a scant suggestion of lemon rind" from my rosemary shrub?

Druse devised 12 "botanical fragrance categories." Most are obvious and self-explanatory, such as fruity, medicinal, spice and forest. Others are more esoteric and mysterious, like heavy or indolic, which is described as "mothballs, hot garbage, overripe fruit, excrement..." Eww! Apparently some pleasant-smelling flowers, like gardenia, can have a secondary background scent of indole. I say "apparently" because when I smelled my own gardenia in flower just now I didn't get anything indolic. But smell is deeply personal, as Druse fully explains in the opening chapters. I grew two varieties of heliotrope this past summer. One smelled like delicious vanilla/cherry pie as expected while the other smelled like the horrible synthetic fragrance used to clean public restrooms. My husband thought of "urinal cake". I'll not grow that cultivar again!

Each category gets an explanation and some general examples plants, then followed by encyclopedia entries for more plants in the category. Plant entries describe the scent, use in the garden, cultivation tips, sometimes a bit of history, and sometimes recommended cultivars. Druse writes with honesty, insight of decades of knowing plants, personal experience. After reading "The Scentual Garden", I'm more likely to sniff my plants and ponder in which category they belong and whether there is a hint of indole in my star jasmine.

This 2019 title is available as an ebook from Seattle Public Library and King County Library System.
Online sale of Molly Hashimoto's art to benefit the Library
Molly Hashimoto's Wilson's Warbler and Willows
We are thrilled to announce that acclaimed Seattle artist and teacher Molly Hashimoto will be giving back to the Miller Library once more with her 2020 virtual exhibit, opening this week. During the month of November, she will donate twenty percent of the proceeds of card and print sales to the Miller Library. Buyers can arrange no-contact pickup directly from the artist.

Molly's work draws on her experience at the North Cascades Institute, with iconic landscapes and animals interpreted in paintings, block prints and etchings. Many of the bird prints appear in her 2019 book, Birds of the West: An Artist's Guide, a part of our Pacific Northwest Connections Collection.
Book drop open and no-contact borrowing coming soon
book imageGood news: we have now reopened our book drop so you may return borrowed books!  Library staff are preparing to offer no-contact pickup of holds during limited hours. In order to enable picking up new holds, you will need to return any items you still have at home.

To place holds, go to
www.millerlibrary.org and browse the catalog. If you do not know your login name and password, please email us at hortlib@uw.edu . Watch our website, Facebook page, and Leaflet for announcements of when and how no-contact lending will begin.

Thank you for your patience during this long closure!
gardening answers
Search for garden wisdom with us. You'll find researched answers,
gardening tips, book reviews, and recommended websites.
New to the library
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image     cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image     cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image
   cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image
   cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image   cover image   cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image
cover image    cover image    cover image

Digital resources
Youth and Nature collection listing    cover image    Miller Library book and flower 
logo   
  give     Miller_LibraryLogo293px.gif    
Facebook    Twitter    Instagram    Pinterest
Contact Us   |   Privacy   |   Terms
© 2020 University of Washington Botanic Gardens