Do you recognize this scene? It's the parking lot of the Auburn, Calif., In'n'Out. I took the picture this afternoon on the return trip of a 24-hour trek over the mountains.  I wanted to show the bank covered with flowers—while spring has been taking its time beginning here, it settled into California some time ago.

I spent the night at my sister's and came home with a couple of huge clumps of lily-of-the-Nile (Agapanthus) plants. I decided a few years ago that maybe our climate had changed enough for them to survive winters here if I planted them against a south-facing wall. It has taken us until now to work the transplanting into a trip at the right time of year. She was happy to get rid of a few of them because they spread too much in the conditions they have there.

By the way, have you ever crossed the state line from California into Nevada and noticed that's where the scenery changes from green to desert? It's same returning from Cedarville in northern Washoe County. I'm starting to think that's how they decided where to draw the line.

I love garden tours, and my sister indulged me this morning, showing off her potted geraniums that bloom all winter and her peonies that are getting ready to bloom. (Her daffodils are long past blooming, and she's getting ready to thin them, too. Imagine needing to thin flowers!)

This is where something weird happened. She'd been telling me how much she enjoyed the scent of her lavender plants, and she picked a flower for me to sniff. It smelled like skunk to me! She sniffed it herself and was confused because it smelled sweet to her. We handed it to my husband, and he thought it smelled musky but sweet.

I know it's possible for people to taste and smell things differently, but this is the first time I've ever run into it with flowers. I wonder if a perfume made from the plant would smell like skunk to me, too?

When she plucked a flower off another type of lavender in her yard for me to try for comparison, it smelled great, like the lavender I have in my own yard. Back to the first plant—still skunky. Crazy.