Paul, goodness you are on a rage.LOL I have never been able to get even a slight fragrance from mimosa. So on that one i'm neutral. I don't like wild onions and i love onions.I'm not fond of basil, except holy basil. I,m sure there are other things but can't think of any more.
vickie

I see you are a botonist(SP) here in AR. Do you know Brent Baker? He is too.
vickie

I will add the odor of the blooms on the hawthorn by our wellhouse, and the blooms on the Viburnum at the corner of our house. Both are yukky! I call the Viburum the "stink tree" when it blooms!I wish it was in a differant location.

I'll add the ginko tree my husband planted. I did win the argument about where to put it..way away from the house!

I'm one that enjoys the smell of privet in the spring..covers up the chicken house odor when the wind's from the east here.

I hate to hear that about #3..planted one last year.

Thanks for the threads! I am a botanist, but haven't met Brent yet. Good additions gang! I've got a few parsley leaf hawthorns on my bony hill, and they can reek to high heaven. Ginkgo fruit is something else! Vickie, you're welcome to hang out under my mimosa around Memorial Day and behold it's scent. The flowers are very exotic, almost otherworldly, but after a while it just becomes too much. Kaye, don't fret, the umbrella magnolia is one of our finest natives, and it's certainly worth having in spite of a stinky flower.

You know, there's many ways to pollinate plants. We're all familiar with the wind pollinated trees of spring which cause everyone to get the sniffles, and coat our cars with limegreen sheen. Most think of sweet flowers that attract bees, wasps, etc and get their genes spread about. But lots of stinking flowers attract flies which do their business thinking perhaps that they are rolling around on something dead. Another good example of this is the stinkhorn mushroom. It looks about as foul as it's smell. Google for it's latin name to get a chuckle.

If you guys have fresh Ginko seeds/nuts, can you send them to me in trade? They're soooo good in soup!

Cleome (spider flower) gets my vote. It smells just like a skunk. I especially notice it when I'm weeding and have my head down at plant level. My first thought is always that there is a skunk in my yard and it must be rabid since it is out in the daytime. Then I remember it is just the lovely spider flowers across the way and I come down off the roof. ;-)
I'm always surprised when people sing the praises of the scent of autumn clematis, too. And I'm also surprised to see it sold in catalogs and nurseries as a desirable plant. It grows like a weed here.

Of course, I grow both these plants in my yard so the smell isn't that bad. They are both beautiful plants.
Anise

I've never experienced the smell of spider flower. Azaleas sometimes have a skunk smell, but I rather like skunk, it reminds me of good european beer! Boxwoods often smell like cat pee, and this attracts cats to join and add their pee-mail. The flowers, however, are very sweet. Autumn Clematis smells like honey to me, but I can imagine it would become unpleasant after a short period of time. They are very prolific with their winged seeds coming up everywhere.

I don't know what it is but I call it the fly bush :( grows like a weed evergreen, made the mistake of planting one by the front porch , when it blooms I chop it ... bush 6 me 0 keeps comming back .
Last week everything in the yard smelled like skunk including the dog . Gin

Ginge, could you be thinking of euonymous? I had one at our other place by the bathroom window and in spring when it bloomed, it would absolutely be covered by green flies!

Sounds like it . wish other things grew like it does .. Thanks .. Gin

The flowers of (Matelea decipiens)Climbing Milkweed is very pretty but the smell is of a stinky armpit,ppp-uuu !. Agave virginica) False aloe, on the other hand is wonderful, can't wait for It's waft in the gardens mid summer.

I just thought of another that many visitors to the garden find a bit offensive. They always want to know what that "pretty fern is" and when I tell them it's Tansy and it was used for an insect repellent in the pioneer days and give them a whif of a crushed plant, most recoil. Actually, I like the scent. I try to grow some plants that make a sensory experience pleasant..some do..some don't...the nose is a variable thing.

Here is another one: clary sage. Some hate it, I like it, smells like grapefruit to me. Self-seeds like crazy. I believe it is salvia sclarea, variety transylvanica.

Another that I don't like is any of the sages, salvia nemerosa.

I moved a bunch of stargazer lilies I had growing by the front door because I can't stand the smell.
I have salvia May Night and another that looks almost exactly like it. One smells like cat pee and the other doesn't have any odor but I'm not sure which is which. I'll try to think of the other one's name. I bought a salvia darcyi with red flowers at the Master Gardeners sale last year and it has that same smell only a little stronger I think.

I love elderberry odor. However, this is from a distance, not up close. To me it has a vanilla/pipe tobacco smell. A friend chimed in on this thread with an emphatic "chinese chestnut" for being the stinkiest plant. I'm not familiar with that one. Mulberry, your quote reminds me of Monty Python's Holy Grail "Your mother was a hampster, and your father smelt of elderberry!"

I planted a tiny red elderberry last spring that looked like it was going to die and wouldn't grow for the longest time, then two long shoots shot up to nearly four foot. Now I'm afraid to move it from its temporary spot since it's so big.
It has purplish buds on it right now so it's going to bloom. Can't wait to see what it smells like. lol
I was planning to put a bench close to where I planted it but after reading about the smell, I think I either need to move it or put my bench in a different spot.

Oh! Christie. I have wanted a red elderberry ever since I saw them in Oregon when I went to visit my brother years ago. They were covered with fruit. A lovely sight!

I have been trying to think of this tree for some time. We had one growing on another farm we lived on..........it had the most disgusting, poison smelling greenish flowers. I kept asking everyone I knew what it was...no one knew.

One day I saw an article about it and knew it was my

Tree of Heaven, Ailanthus altissima. You can't kill them. I have since seen them growing out of pavement and sidewalks. It is from China and has naturalized over the US. You don't want one!!

mulberryknob, when we lived in Mass they had wild plants they called skunk cabbage and it did stink like skunk. Wonder if it was the same thing. It must have been.
vickie

mulberryknob, when we lived in Mass they had wild plants they called skunk cabbage and it did stink like skunk. Wonder if it was the same thing. It must have been.
vickie

I don't know, vickie, as I've never been to Mass. If it was a huge yellow flower in the arums it may well have been. It was a swamp or bog plant and was native in Washington state where I grew up--and smelled very skunky.

My elderberry is mush all the way down to the ground. Guess I won't be making any jelly this year. I did get to smell the blooms before the freeze and it wasn't TOO bad. I was reading a post on another forum about how much it spreads/suckers and now wondering if I should try to move it to another spot. It's "dormant" again. lol