What flowers are blooming where you live?

I thought it would interesting to start a thread devoted to the flowers currently in bloom where you live. Not simply a favorite flower or floral scent from anytime of the year but one that is actually in bloom at the time of your post.
Here in the southeast US daffodils and tiny purple crocuses bloom in late February and early March. They bloomed little later this year but we'll have vases of daffodils in the house for the next week or two.
Daffodils have a deep, indolic scent with touches of mango nectar and fresh green notes. The crocuses have a very faint saffron smell.
Yesterday, I was also surprised to see that our long neglected camellia bush was chock full of buds too. I don't know a thing about camellias but I assume it's some sort of hybrid because the blossoms are beautiful but have very little scent.

Please share what's blooming where you live ...with apologies to those still in the grips of winter

Down here in Hollywood, FL My Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera truncata) is blooming and my blackberries have buds on them, this is really exciting since they didn't bloom last year. The Bidens alba is in full swing and blanketing the yard (such a pain to mow). The mangos have just lost their bloom and the avocados are near the end of their peak too. The Star Burst (Clerodendrum quadriloculare) is also in Full bloom. I forgot how many people have it in their yards until it goes crazy. I've also seen a lot of the Orange trumpet Creeper (Pyrostegia venusta) and Bouganvilla peppering the landscape with their vibrant colors. My purple lantanas seem to always be in bloom. So does my red and yellow crown of thorns.

Briarthorn, do any of those have a particularly interesting scent? I'm especially curious about the avocado.

Beautiful photos. Grey. Thanks for sharing a bit of spring with those of us who're lagging behind, flowerwise. I'm almost tempted to drag a potted plant outside for a photo but that would be cheating.

Nah, it's not cheating, Cryptic. If it's blooming, it's fair game. Post away if you'd like!

Just today the Bradford Pears have started to blossom. The trees are covered in small, beautiful, white flowers. HOWEVER, the flowers have a very strong scent that is, um, shall we say, very manly. Seriously, it's nature's floral version of "Sécrétions Magnifiques" Over the next week the city is going to smell like a brothel. Do you think Fragrantica would allow this post?

http://www.businessinsider.com/bradford-pear-t ree-semen-sex-smell-2013-4

It might offend certain Victorian sensibilities. Speaking of which:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHze0SqB5Zg

Those Bradford pears are wildly popular up here, I imagine because they mature in just a few years and they're so perfectly symmetrical. They do smell funky but they're a picnic compared to gingko trees. Actually, it's only the gingko fruit that smells vomitrocious.

I have an orchid that I may try to photograph if I get home when the light is still decent. It's an interesting one because the fragrance is unexpectedly spicy. It's in the ballpark of a carnation but without the clove essence, just a strong scent of black pepper. The flower is snowy white, which is a striking contrast to the warmth of the scent. I used to think all orchids had that familiar heady floral sweetness, but I have one that smells exactly like dark chocolate and a few other oddities that don't fit the typical orchid mold.

Whew! The video said it for me. That's what Bradford pears are called around here... and I don't mean Linden trees. Yeah, I'm apparently that Victorian.
Love the sketch, by the way. I'll have to look into more Mitchell and Webb.
Can't wait to see the orchids. We managed to kill one this winter although I don't recall that it had any scent.

Same here Greysolon, killed mine over the winter, over watered. Couldn't smell anything with mine either.

It's the first time we had an orchid and it held it's blossoms a long time. It was beautiful. But over the course of the last 2 months it was a steady decline. I'm looking forward to seeing Cryptic's orchid orchard. Or at least some advice about how not to kill them.

I've killed my share of orchids but the forlorn desire to see something bloom in the dead of winter is motivation enough for me to keep most of them going. This should make you guys feel better. See this fabulous spider orchid? When I was taking the picture I noticed how top heavy it was from all the blooms, so I grabbed the first heavy thing in the vicinity, a rusty old bicycle chain, and dumped it in the bottom of a bigger pot for ballast. Then I tucked the orchid in on top and congratulated myself on my mad problem-solving skills. It croaked about a week later, probably due to some kind of rust poisoning.

What kind of orchid did you have, Grey? A phalaenopsis? If I'm remembering correctly that's what you had, Cincy. Only water once a week, moderate light (Eastern or Western exposure would work best down South) and I don't even bother to fertilize them. They need to be repotted when the potting medium, which is usually bark chips, starts to break down and disintegrate. They won't bloom without a temperature drop so you guys might have to keep them in a room with AC for a few weeks until you see a bloom stalk and then transfer back to a window sill. That's all.

Yes, it was a phalaenopsis. I didn't have any problems with it blooming. could have been the fertilizing since I did that several times, plus watering to much.

Cryptic, I do believe that is the most beautiful orchid I have ever seen. I will look for a spider orchid.

Thank you, Cincy. It was beautiful while it lasted and it was fragrant, too. :/

The thing about fertilizing orchids is that if you're going to do it, you also have to flush them out with lots of water periodically, otherwise the chemical salts accumulate and the roots get burnt. That might've been what did your orchid in. I've found that the Phals will bloom for me on a steady diet of H20 and nothing more. It could be that they would bloom more often and produce more flowers if I fertilized, though.

Cryptic, really beautiful orchids! You don't simply have a green thumb, I bet it can resuscitate plants through photosynthesis!
I think the orientation of our house/windows is not conducive for indoor plants. The largest windows face north or south. Good for heating and cooing, bad for plants. The south windows get direct sunlight several hours a day in the winter and the north windows ...face north!
I'm ashamed to say I don't know what kind of orchid we had ...Chypre?
I'll have to stop by a florist or greenhouse just to get a sniff at some different orchids.

Greysolon, Trader Joe's has beautiful orchids, great prices too. Do you have TJ"s?

Yes, Cincy, Trader Joe's usually has a nice selection of orchids and so does Whole Foods. I've had some happy hunting at Lowe's and Home Depot, too.

Did it look like these, Grey? They're Phalaenopsis orchids. If you have a Southern exposure you can grow all sorts of wonderful things, but you would have to keep the phals a few feet back from the windows. In all likelihood you probably overwatered your orchid. If the leaves became wrinkled and droopy it wasn't getting enough water which paradoxically will happen if you water too much because that will rot the roots. If you ever buy another orchid look for one that's potted in bark chips instead of sphagnum moss because bark drains better and therefore you're less likely to croak your plant. BTW, it's odd to get praised for a plant that I killed, but thanks for the kind thought. I'm usually pretty good with living things but when it comes to mechanical devices I'm completely dim-witted and incompetent.

It was a Phalaenopsis. I think our problem was under-watering. I have a lot of perennials in pots outside (herbs/shrubs) and I'm very stingy with water during the winter. It's the only way to get them through. The orchid pot was filled with bark which is great for drainage ...well, unless there's nothing to drain. We'll have to check out Trader J's and see what they've got. I got the now late orchid last fall for Lady Grey's birthday and the flowers hung on for about 3 months. It was beautiful. Then we got into mid winter ...strike up the dies irae.

Well, it was sweet of you to buy it for your wife in the first place and no doubt you did your best, but keep in mind that most orchids belong indoors when the temp falls below about 65 degrees. Good luck with the next one!

Fortunately I didn't expect the orchids to share my Nordic love of winter so they were always kept indoors . Even though we didn't freeze them I think they languished from too little water I'm sure we'll try again because they're beautiful plants with such unique, long lasting flowers. Hopefully we'll be a little more sensitive to their needs thanks to your advice, Cryptic and Cincy! I'm also hoping I can find one with a bit of scent too.

Greysalon try tossing a ice cube on the orchid bark every few days. It's an easy way to water it without overwatering it.

I've never really noticed the smell of Avacado flowers. Some people describe it as similar to a pear blossom, not bad but not great either. Personally, I have no idea.

There are at so many species of mangoes growing down here. Some of the flowers are scentless others have a very strong sweetish scent. Some species scents remind me a little bit of lily-of-the-valley. Yea, there is a big spectrum of the mango flower scents. Of the scented varieties they almost all have a sweet facet to them though.

Oops, I misunderstood you, Grey. So glad to hear the poor orchid didn't freeze to death! Sorry to tell you this but you may have a difficult time finding a phalaenopsis that's fragrant. They do exist but they're pretty uncommon. Go for a cattleya if you want something that smells heavenly.

This is a Beallara orchid called "Howard's Dream," and it has a faint scent of licorice. It's beside the Serge bottle for scale and because the color is similar.

I'll look for Cattleya and Beallara. Beallara is almost fleshy looking! Any common names that identify these varieties? It drives me nuts when flowers don't exude scent. I'd much rather have a plain, aromatic flower than an extravagant blossom without "nose."
Briarthorn, your advice about using ice cubes is exactly what we did because it was mentioned in the "owner's manual " that came with our plant. Apparently we didn't apply this instruction often enough.
The Crepe myrtles have begun blossoming in some neighborhoods but I'll have to wait til ours begin to bloom so I don't get arrested for standing in a stranger's front yard with my eyes shut in ecstasy, sniffing at their trees

There's no common name for Beallara orchids, but cattleyas are often called corsage orchids. Avoid mini cattleyas because most of them have no scent. Whatever you buy, use tepid water on it.

oregonorchidsociety.org/ice-cubes-and-orchids

Dandelions are popping up all over my yard. A Dandelion flower is one of the few things that, to me, smells the way it looks. Can smells be onomatopoeaic? The scent is not at all shy but it is soft, round and golden and reminds me of the florals in Dior’s Eau Sauvage which I also think of as being soft, round and golden. The actual scent has a subtle hay or straw like sweetness and the quality of softness strikes me as buttery and slightly animalic.
As I was googling “dandelion” I stumbled across one of those idiotic Yahoo! Answers threads and someone posted this question: “Why do dandelions smell so damn awesome? Like a stick of butter on a pancake that is fresh from the zoo?”
Honestly? I get that! First, i couldn’t believe someone else thought of the scent as buttery and anamalic. Second, I got schooled in the age old aphorism, “There are no stupid questions.”
I caught this little guy picnicking in the sun...

That is a beautiful picture Greysolon. The Dandelions that grow wild down here are very small and a bit sparse. I have never really had a chance to take in their scent. You have me intrigued!

Eureka!