Yes, different varieties of peonies smell quite differently. The best thing to do, if you live near a botanical garden or a good nursery, is to go and smell them for yourself, since this topic is so subjective. Personally, I've never smelled a peony that I would say is similar to a lilac. But, my 'Festiva Maxima' does have a lovely, rose-like smell. I also have a couple of unknown varieties which don't smell too great.

For herbaceous peonies I think people usually refer to clumps, since they aren't really bushes or shrubs.

Some of the scent is caused by minerals in the soil. I am begining to believe the soil has a bigger effect than has been felt in the past. Met someone at the APS show and she commented that "The Fawn" at the show had no scent but hers was strongly scented. The flower was from the west coast and hers was from upper Iowa.

Scent is also effected by the stage of opening in certain peonies. Some will smell strongly when first opened but in a day or so be a lite scent.

The sense of smell also differs from person to person and by their individual health.

Peony smell is classified into 5 different catagories of scent. For the life of me I cant remember what all 5 are.

#1 I know the first scent was the floral scent. Some smell like roses, some almost like magnolia. It is the best scent of all and my favorite.

#2 I know another is spice. Some of the peonies in my yard have blends of smells I get from our kitchen spice rack.

#3 The coral and salmon peonies tend to have smells that are in the carrion range. That is right! Just like 2 week old ROAD KILL. Not a pleasant scent but they add nicely to the color range of herbaceous peonies.

Can anyone suggest the other two scents. Like I said, I can't remember them at all.

The five scent catagories for peonies: Floral, Spice, Carrion, ?????, and ?????.

Leon

Musk & spice but I don't think carrion or to me reconsituted old fish are scent terms.

Since I'm moving from N.Ca to a another state soon, I'm looking forward to adding a few peonies to my soon to be garden far away. On this note, thought I'd stop by a local N.Ca nursery and check out the peonies. My current area is not known for peony health yet they sell the rather expensive plants (I've yet to see a live peony planted in someone's yard here, which is a cool, foggy area) Anyway I bent down to take in the scent of my first peony -it was a double cerise pink, don't recall the name and had a big tag claiming it was "NEW!" to the trade; and ugh; -pungent, head shaking nose clinging hard to describe. I'm looking forward to getting a Festiva Maxima and some other old fashioned types with a well identified scent after I move.

FWIW the Canada Peony website says there are four scents: rose, lemon, honey and musk.

Which peonies smell like roses and which ones smell citrusy, these are the scents I am interested in??