Fragrance Fest: Breathe Deep in Healdsburg

Busy planting roses in your garden? Pause and follow your sniffer to the Russian River Valley.

SEEING SPRING FROM AUTUMN: There are so many must-dos and myths and fables and facts surrounding the rose, which makes sense; after all, not every flower in the garden is cited by scribes as superstarry as Shakespeare. But one of the oft-repeated pieces of advice, one that many a planter of petals always heeds, is that roses should go in the ground in the fall, if a beautiful burst come early springtime is desired. You may be busy in your own garden, with newly acquired plants, with just this hope in mind, that in March or April your current flower-less bed'll be a rainbow of sniffable color. There is a way to get inspired to keep planting and tending, if you need inspiration, and it comes in the form of the Russian Tea & Fragrance Festival at the Russian River Rose Company in Healdsburg. The smell-nice weekend is the last lively get-together on the garden-plus-perfumery's calendar, so flower fans looking for one more burst of rosiness, before the wintertime sets in, will be out in flowery force. The dates? Look to Saturday, Oct. 17 and Sunday, Oct. 18, a time of year when many people are out in nature looking up at trees, to admire changing leaves, and not down at the roses blooming closer to the earth. Consider it a way to admire a dose of springtime from the middle of the fall.

SCENT SALON DEMOS: If you want to put the full focus on your nose, and the experience of taking in and considering a fragrance, you'll get that chance, and you'll get the chance to enjoy flavorful tea just steps from all of the pretty buds still going to hue-happy town in the gardens. There shall also be tea leaf readings, in case you want to know how your own at-home garden will bloom next spring -- or perhaps other pressing life questions -- and the launch of a rose perfume. It's the launch for state's "only estate made rose perfume," which is something you would need to tell everyone who complimented your fragrance. They'd love to know, right? Bulgarian singing group Gradina will perform folk songs, and other music-moving entertainments will enhance your roses-in-fall experience. Can you truly have a trip to spring in October? You can, in Healdsburg, over the middle weekend of the month.

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