I was down in the bottom of the big garden yesterday in the area close to the ditch, the only place in the whole meager, battered garden where plants grow vigorously and well. I was on a tour of inspection, main task to see whether the bagworms had returned on a rose they had infested--I didn't know bagworms attacked roses, nor an American oak we also found them on, two unwelcome novelties--and while I was down there I spent some time in the ditch area pulling the sticky, ubiquitous pest Galium aperine and removing some hops vines, as well as pruning dead growth off the stricken Rosa hugonis. I waded through tall grass and the occasional nettle and a couple of suckering Gallicas, 'Duchesse de Berry' and 'Belle Isis', brushing against them and trying to avoid yanking on their canes along with the Galium. I could smell the roses: the bushes, not the flowers, which won't start flowering for a few weeks yet. I knew old roses have sticky, fragrant buds, and vaguely knew the glands that emit the scent extend beyond the buds, but this is first time I noticed that the whole plant is fragrant. I got the scent on me, and when I returned to the house I could still smell the odor, and so could my daughter. It's a lovely scent. If any perfumier took it into their head to collect the essential oil that produces that fragrance, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.