aes creates a list of unevaulated expressions that describe how variables in the data are mapped to visual properties of geoms.
xlab and ylab are not counted as visual properties of geoms, they are labels for the scales that define the x and y axes.
You can define these in numerous ways
# given a base plot
baseplot <- ggplot(seednumber, aes(x = Study.Site, y = Seed.Number, colour = Country)) +
geom_boxplot()
1) The simplest is to use the functions labs or xlab and ylab
baseplot + labs(x = "Study Site", y = "Number of seeds in a podr")
# or
baseplot + xlab("Study Site") + ylab("Number of seeds in a podr")
note you can use labs to change the label of any scale (including those mapped in aes)
2). You have more control over the scales using the relevant scale_..._... functions
eg
baseplot + scale_x_discrete(name = "Study Site") +
scale_y_continuous(name = 'Number of seeds in a podr')