Heliotrope, a favorite plant and scent

Heliotrope has a sweet scent, light and like sugar. I love scented plants including some Asiatic lilies like Tom Pouce, with beautiful flowers whose scent can fill a room. Heliotrope has a more delicate fragrance and is not overpowering the way some lilies and other flowers are. Once I brought a Tom Pouce bloom to work and a co-worker said it was a bit much so I took it home the next day.
I planted three kinds of Heliotrope this year, which can grow in compact form to ten inches tall or other varieties as tall as 2 to 3 feet tall, and is good in zones 9-11. I put two in pots and will bring them inside before weather gets too cold. The other two are planted in the ground so I hope they will winter over ok.

The above photos are of my True Beauty Heliotrope which I planted September 10, 2016 in a large container. I also planted two Atlanta Heliotrope and one Heliotropium Scentropia Blue. Heliotrope is often called Cherry Pie Flower due to its delicious scent.  As you can see, the leaves are dark green and very attractive. The Heliotropes I mention here are Common Heliotrope or Heliotropium arborescens, not to be confused with Garden Heliotrope or Valariana officinalis (which I have not planted).
Do you have favorite or unusual fragrant plants?

Book Beginnings: Enchanted April

Here is the beginning of "The Enchanted April" by Elizabeth von Armin.
Mrs. Wilkins at her Woman's Club in London on a miserable February day read the following in the Agony Column in the London Times.
"To those who appreciate wisteria and sunshine. Small mediaeval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be Let furnished for the month of April. Necessary servants remain."
Wow, I think her life will take an excited turn this April.
I am linking with Book Beginnings

Here is a quote from 56 percent of my Kindle book.
"Often she had met wives who didn't want their husbands either, but that made them none the less indignant if they thought somebody else did, and none the less sure, when they saw them hanging round Scrap, that she was trying to get them."
I am linking to Friday 56
There was a movie made of this book in 1935 and in 1992.
I just finished reading "The Enchanted April" and it now has a place of honor in my top 25 all time favorite books. Easy to read and full of happy surprises for these four troubled ladies.
Thanks to Jennifer for recommending this book, on her blog at Sparrow Tree Journal

Wordless Wednesday: Mary

Serene beautiful Mary who has been in our garden for twenty years.

I am linking to Wordless Wednesday
Here is quote from Saint Therese of Lisieux, April 1895, which has the image of a shower of roses.
"I have given nothing but love to God and He will repay with love. After my death I will let fall a shower of roses."
I first read this quote quite a while ago on the blog Shower of Roses

Book Beginnings: A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers

This book surprised me in the best way. Most of the people in "A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers" by Michael Holroyd are not very familiar to me. While reading this biographical book I found the people fascinating and began to care about them.
In the hills above the small Italian town of Ravello is the Villa Cimbrone which pulls them all together, including the author and his wife, Margaret Drabble.
Here is the quote for Book Beginnings:
"On 24 February 1905 Rodin dines in London with a new benefactor Ernest Beckett (shortly to emerge, like a butterfly from its chrysalis, as the second Lord Grimthorpe).  page 8
I am linking to Book Beginnings
Some of the people Holroyd writes about: Violet Trefusis (author and lover of Vita Sackville-West). Alice Keppel, mother of Violet and mistress to Ernest Beckett, the second Lord Grimthorpe and famously mistress to the Prince of Wales. Vita Sackville-West and her strong marriage to Harold Nicolson yet she had a passionate lesbian affair with Violet. Eve Fairfax, muse to Auguste Rodin. There are many interesting stories here.
Meanwhile the romantic Villa Cimbrone is a character in the lives of these people.
Here is a link to Friday 56
"The focus of Ernest's life had now moved to the Villa Cimbrone. It was a vision: a magic place to which, he believed, he would always return. For what he sought on his travels, what answered his dreams, he would bring back to Cimbrone, hoping to make it the centre of his life." p.64 (not page 56, I know!).