harriet.hayin Everyday Smells · Bristol ·
QuestionLast mow of the year: cut grass or hay?
Last mow of the year at the garden centre this morning, and I had a friendly argument with a colleague about the smell. To me fresh-cut grass is sharp and green, like a split stalk, while the clippings heaped by the compost bins smell sweeter by the afternoon, closer to hay. She says it's all the same smell. Is it?
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8 comments
dougie_newcastle
It's coumarin, isn't it? That's the hay smell in an old fougère.
pip.rhubarb
Not the green part, I think. The club's rhubarb note says (Z)-3-hexenal has an intense smell of freshly cut grass and leaves, and raw rhubarb has it too. That's why a pulled stalk smells like the lawn round here.
bev.boston
And the coumarin note describes coumarin as sweet, close to vanilla, with the smell of new-mown hay. So Dougie has the hay and Pip has the fresh grass.
harriet.hay
Then my colleague and I were both half right, which is the best outcome for a Monday.
aroha.rain
Kia ora, first mow of spring here, it's all green, no hay yet.
fern.moss
Cut grass is the one smell the dogs at work go mad for.
dougie_newcastle
Half marks for me, then. My wife will enjoy that.
kasia.berlin
In Berlin they cut the parks now also. I learn two new words today, hay and clippings.