The Smell Museum

The garden at Towerwater was created to be a holistic sensory experience of taste, smell, sight and sound. Taste from the fruit, vegetables and herbs. Smell from the fragrant roses, flowers and herbs, and sight from the visual display of the plants in the different ‘rooms’ of the garden. The sound emanates from the variety of birds that are drawn to the garden.

Geraniums, basil, mint and rosemary

The Wolff boys enjoy collecting leaves from the different herbs and smelling them. On the 1^st of January while we were relaxing in the garden the boys were exploring as usual and 7 year old Oscar had gathered a collection of rosemary, mint and geranium leaves. This made for a heady mix of fragrances in his hand. He soon discovered that even after you separate them the fragrances linger on in one’s hand.

Oscar and his Smell Museum

He disappeared for a while and came out of the kitchen with five sherry glasses filled with different herbal leaves. On his mom’s enquiry of what he was doing with the glasses he answered that he had washed and dried them to put his leaves in.

Oscar demonstrating how it works

He arranged them in a row and we were informed that that was his ‘ruik museum’ (smell museum). He had found a way to separate the leaves so that one can experience their individual fragrances.

There he was, 7 years old and creating a smell museum on his own initiative where we could all experience the individual fragrances captured in separate glasses. He proceeded to start mixing them and with the encouragement of his Aunt Susan, began further experimentation with the fragrances.

He came to ask me for paper and a pen and I was under the impression that he wanted to draw again but a short while later he produced a sign for his museum and a proud little boy promptly ‘unveiled’ his smell museum.

Everybody was left amazed by his spontaneous creativity.