''Well, it might be jasmine,'' I said, ''but the port wine magnolia is blooming just next to you - no, you don't notice the flowers, but the fragrance is wonderful. Or the perfume might be from the hybrid musk rose just above us. Or is it a curry scent? Because the curry bush sends out a whiff now and then. Or maybe...''

It was about then he lost interest.

Spring is when I can pretty much tell exactly where I am in the garden with my eyes shut. There's the mock orange blossom by the main vegetable garden, which also smells of mulch and broad beans; the genuine orange blossom on the orange trees, the mints and thymes and other herbs underfoot, the scent of pittosporum and wattle and ... shall we just say 'lots'?

Theoretically we have fragrance all year round, though not in a drought and bushfire year like the last one. The late mid-spring scent onslaught is followed by the more decorous fragrance of a dozen or so rose bushes, particularly Buff beauty, parchment coloured and able to waft scent over a hectare on a warm day, and climbing Souvenier de la Malmaison, which clambers up a post outside my study and is an excellent reason for keeping the window open. She is spicy rather than the classic 'rose scent', and glorious. The wisteria and black wattle are just beginning, and we have already had two bouts of 'freshly grown grass', which is one of the best scents in the world.

If I've remembered to prune back spent roses and have fed and watered them, their perfume will continue over summer. If not, the tomato patch is just outside, in easy gathering distance of the kitchen. The scent of hot tomato foliage and ripe fruit is unmistakably mid-summer, as are ripe peaches, apricots and the evaporating oils in foliage of lemon verbena et al, plus the odd fermenting lemon that has rolled off into the garlic chives. The vaguely lemon scent of magnolia grandiflora floats up to us - the flowers are too far above to smell or even see properly from below. Do not plant this unless you have a massive garden, or are sure you have found a truly dwarfed variety. Around about Christmas the liliums begin to bloom - or will if they survived last summer, and the star jasmine. Then comes the scent of English lavender.

Autumn brings lilac, though not if I get around to chopping it down - our old-fashioned one, variety unknown, suckers badly. Look for modern varieties that don't sucker nor are prone to downy mildew. The sasanqua camellias begin to bloom then, too - look for scented varieties - then rosemary, French lavender, Japonica camellias, daphne, wintersweet, freesias, earlicheer and paperwhite jonquils, the wild clematis, and we are back to spring.

But if you only have a courtyard, or even a patio? Think two climbing roses, whichever you fall in love with - I'd go for Climbing Papa Meiland or Souvenier de la Malmaison - and a potted jasmine, if you can be sure it won't escape into any bush nearby. Place two potted gardenias by the front door (they grow best in a sheltered spot in our climate), a potted daphne for winter scents, a lemon verbena for summer teas or possibly a makrut lime for its fragrant leaves, extremely necessary for Thai fish cakes, and possibly some pots of English and French lavender ... and you'll be properly perfumed.

Best of all, every single one of those can be planted now, except the freesia and jonquils (wait till February for those.). But every single month deserves its scent - and so do you.

There is a reason to leave all those cobwebs around your windows.

If you don't leave lots of cobwebs, the birds can't do this...