A waft of the most heavenly smell again today, I really love those rich plant perfumes! This one reminded me of a shrub I had planted in my old garden. I took my time to select the perfect variety because of space limitations and at the time my choice was quite hard to find. Mahonias are large prickly evergreens with four inch long tendrils of yellow flowers in early spring and my variety was Buckland. Apart from size, another reason it had to be this one, was that it was first bred by the late Lionel Fortescue, when he lived at the Garden House http://www.thegardenhouse.org.uk/ one of my very favourite gardens to visit, an hour away across Dartmoor. Seeing and catching the scent today made me wonder how my old garden is doing now, if the planting I did is appreciated.
Lucid Gypsy 
I’m a great one for smells. I can be transported back year by a sniff!
I love Mahonia, and this post captures how memories are bound up in so many things; how the whiff of a scent, the smell of food cooking, can whisk us to another place and time.
well done!
I hope your old garden is appreciated too. It’s sounds like you put a lot of thought and energy into it. It’s wonderful how scents can evoke memories.