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My Gardenia is blooming

Started by Tom, December 12, 2009, 12:02:36 PM

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Tom

Here it is, almost Christmas and I'm looking out of my window on a rainy day to see two white blooms on one of my Gardenia bushes.  Gardenias have the reputation of being difficult to grow.  I've not found that to be true. They are slow growers and I am impatient (what a pun that could make) but mine have thrived, regardless of the abuse. 

My first experience with them was a plant in the front yard of the neighbor across the street when I was a little boy. Mrs. Sasser had a gardenia bush about five feet tall that would become covered with blooms in the middle of the summer.  They were almost sickeningly sweet smelling and I was enthralled with the fact that they bruised so easily.  I was told not to touch the petals when I picked one because it would turn brown.  It will too.   I would carefully pick a flower and bring it to Grandmomma who would trim the stem such that there would be two or three leaves forming a background and then she would float it in a shallow dish of water in the middle of the dining room table.   Her favorite dish for this was a cut crystal, shallow bowl that rested on a three or four inch stem.  Thinking back on it, it was probably the bottom to a cake dish.  I remember a large, heavy, crystal top with similar designs that must have belonged to the bottom.  We lived conservatively in a modest home, but Grandmomma had some really pretty pieces of furniture, silverware and crystal that would be shown on special occasions.

I got this gardenia from a friend, who got cuttings from his mother, who lived on the south side of Jacksonville.  He heeled in his cuttings in a ditch in his backyard with intentions of replanting them. They grew just fine there and formed a little thicket.  The first thing he knew they had begun to "run" up the ditch and made a rather nice hedge beneath the large spreading Oaks of his side yard.

I brought a couple of the cuttings to the house and rooted them in pots that I kept under the edge of the house.  Then, afraid that they might die in the pot, moved the plants to the edge of the drainage ditch on the East side of the property where they would be shaded by the small live-oaks and gums growing there.  They get full sun, but only after the noon of the day.  They grew there, almost dormant, for years. Then, one day I looked out of the window and the one closest to the house was three feet tall and full of blooms.  It kind of sneaked up on me.  The second one, planted twenty feet further up the ditch was even slower maturing, but now is a small but healthy plant.   

I had also rooted a cutting and put the pot at the edge of a little pond by the driveway, in full sun.  It rooted through the bottom of the pot and seemed to like being wet-footed.  Growing in water for most of its life, it shot up and made a large, healthy plant.  When I was deepening the pond to get dirt for the driveway, I gingerly reached down with the hoe and moved it out of the way to the side of the property.  I had all intentions of replanting it when I finished, but as things go, my dirt hill fell and buried it.  I searched and searched and was unable to find it.  But, I still have these two back at the house.

Looking at the pretty little blooms out of my rain drenched window brings back feelings of summer.  The flowers are brilliant white and leaves are large, leathery, very dark green things that form a dense background for the petals.

I'm sure they would smell citrus/sugar sweet if I could get to them.

If I can remember to do it, I guess I should make some more cuttings for pots and share these with neighbors and friends.  That will be a good project for a pretty day.



fishpharmer

Tom, I am glad to hear you have Gardenia blooms.  Gardenias do have a distinctive sweet smell.  I have always enjoyed catching a whiff of gardenias.  My mama has some that have bloomed this time of year.  I remember them from a Christmas visit. 
Thanks for sharing the story.
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Radar67

My Mom has two bushes in her yard. I am planning to get some cuttings from them.
"A man's time is the most valuable gift he can give another." TOM

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gary

The only blooming thing around here that is white is snow.

fstedy

I remember my Mom had a potted one in our sunporch. It did have that distinctive sweet smell.
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I know its a long story!!!

SwampDonkey

Quote from: gary on December 12, 2009, 08:02:40 PM
The only blooming thing around here that is white is snow.

:D :D :D Yup!  Rain, snow, ice you name it.  :D :D
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