I’ve been ignoring my gardenia. That’s not totally truthful but life has come at us fast this last week so it was as good an excuse as any to stop obsessing (ok, ok I can’t stop, but I did tone it down a bit). Things I have discovered while ignoring my gardenia:
I was definitely watering it too much. Not like, in a way that would kill it, but definitely in a way that might have resulted in buds that seemed like they were going to flower to fall off randomly, inexcusably, for no reason.
It wasn’t getting enough sunlight. So, I’m pretty sure I killed my first gardenia with too much sunlight when I was trying to save it. What plant doesn’t like western expose in the middle of summer where it gets 8 hours of direct sunlight in the heat of the day?!? (Answer: quite a lot of plants actually.) In my quest to not make the same mistakes again, I think my north facing window was just a little too much on the diffused light side of things. So I’ve been moving it to east facing which is just the right amount of cooler temp but hours of direct sun that I think it needed.
Goddammit the daily spritzing is working.
My ignoring has been rewarded by a single bud that looks like it might survive the pull of gravity to give me the sweet, sweet smell of a bloom. This hope is just the kind of thing that lures you into a false sense of security so I’ve chosen to expect it to be dead by tomorrow.
My gardenia is telling me not to touch it. I read recently the gardenia doesn’t like to be moved. This conflicts with what my sister, now the beacon for everything good in the gardenia world, does with her gardenia. While I would like to take back my hand riddling post (and subsequently hand riddling), the information clearly did not stop me from putting my gardenia into south facing sunlight this morning (again, per sister’s successes). I may delete this post in a week depending on what happens.
I’m starting to become jealous of my cousin’s propensity for plastic plants. I’ve started envisioning days when my whole house is plastic plants and I have no responsibilities whatsoever. Go on a vacation on a whim? Why, I don’t even need to worry about figuring out a plan. I wouldn’t need to make a highly detailed list of every plant and what it needs on every day that I’m gone (and then eventually saying f it and hiring a gardener who will actually stick their finger in the dirt to know if it needs watering or not).
Plastic plants are true freedom. Maybe I’ll get just one…
My gardenia is telling me to spritz it gently with water every day. After the prior day’s events, I went on to interrogate Naomi as to her gardenia methods. What was her secret? Well, besides the daily affirmations she says to the gardenia, she also spritzes it daily. I think I’d rather put up a kitten inspiration poster for the gardenia to look at (“Hang in there!”) than to commit to spritzing anything daily but as per usual my competitive spirit has gotten me and here I am. Spritzing.
My gardenia had a bud fall off and I’m devastated. Now, this was a normal occurrence BT. “BT” in this case notes the time period before transplanting it to a bigger pot and before I started this blog. During this dark time, buds will fall off and I knew I was killing my gardenia and losing at the competition. But the transplanting was my savior of sorts. It produced new leaves, new foliage, new buds. My attention of the gardenia was rewarded and it was the dawn of a new age. And even better, a single bud was turning white.
Not to hit this whole Jesus analogy too hard but the irony is not lost on me that while I was away celebrating Easter with my family, the single white bud on my gardenia dropped to the ground. Not a spec of rot on it, leaving me with more questions than answers. I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to surmise at who struck down my false god.
To make matters worse, Naomi alerted us as to the fact that she has a bud that is blooming. Her piety rewarded. I’ve resolved to pray more over my gardenia.
My gardenia is telling me I overwatered it. You see, I’ve spent a long time observing this plant. And one of the things I noticed one morning after waking up before the sun was that the leaves had a certain glassy quality that was striking. On googling, I found out that it means that things are healthy! Finally an indicator I can glom on to! So needless to say I’ve started to become paranoid about the level of glassy…ness. Even so much as to give away valuable intel and alert my sister and mom about said observation so they too can join me in my obsession.
So this morning at 5am, I noticed my new top leaves didn’t have the same glass type quality that the rest of the leaves had. Is it just that they are new leaves? Are they too big (seriously they are huge compared to the rest of the plant)? Did I overwater it yesterday? How do I fix overwatering? That’s not a hypothetical, seriously can someone help me fix overwatering? (A quick search says to stop watering it. Thanks google.)
On the plus side, my mom informed me that she left the gardenia out in the sun all day inadvertently. It is truly a war of attrition.
My gardenia is telling me to water it and also to rotate it exactly 35 degrees to the north. It’s decided it likes when different areas of its leaves gets different types of light. I think it just likes it when I touch it.
When in Sonoma wine country last fall we were taught about riddling, a practice by which they turn the sparkling wine bottles to collect all the sediment so it can be removed easier. They do this for weeks, sometimes months, and for the most part it’s all automated. However, the most expensive champagne bottles are hand riddled. Painstakingly. Carefully. I imagine with gloved hands.
I think I’d rather have an expensive bottle of champagne rather than an expensive hand riddled gardenia and yet, I continue to do its bidding. Send help. Or expensive champagne.
My gardenia is telling me… nothing. It’s fine. It didn’t need me while I was gone. No water, no auspicious yellow leaves, nothing. Meanwhile, I spent the entire time in New Orleans with my eyes peeled for that bright white fragrant flower. See, unlike Seattle where we’re trying so hard to work against the natural inclinations of the gardenia to die a quick, horrible death, the gardenias in the south live! Thrive even! So when I had read that to keep my gardenia alive all I need to do was to ship it southward, I decided to see if it was indeed true in the wilds of NOLA. Day after day of miles trudging around the urban landscape, I saw nothing. And then, on my final day, eyes hazy from frozen margaritas, I spotted it.
There was a gardenia. And not a small one – a big vibrant bush. And I was in luck, it was blooming. Whether it was the alcohol or the most amazing fragrance from the flowers, my head was light and I was giddy. This is what I was working for. Sure, my gardenia will take a thousand times more work and be half as large (when in nola apparently they just hang out not needing any extra attention whatsoever), but it will be worth it. And if all else fails, there’s always moving to the south.
Being away from my gardenia has allowed me to reflect on my first gardenia experience. A time when I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, a time of innocence really. A time way back in 2016. I believe it was another gift from my mom, from the annual flower and garden show here in February. I believe she sold it on me by promising “the most amazing smelling flowers when it blooms” and indeed it was about to bloom. So I went home with my purchase none the wiser. 3 months later, I had my first bloom. I was so excited I posted this photo to our family shared thread.
My hubris in a bloom
Little did I know what was awaiting me. Now I want to note that this was during our first summer in our new house. I had lots of projects and plants to take care of. So forgive me when I say that I let this gardenia go a bit too long with water… a few times. In my defense, I’m a water once-a-week gal! I want my plants to want it when I water them. I prefer to hack my way through things. When I pull up a tree, I just dig it out hopeful that it’ll live on replanting (roots, what roots?). Needless to say, this is not what the gardenia wanted and what the gardenia says, goes.
From there, things went downhill. Quickly. Upon seeing that my gardenia wasn’t responding well to my now frenetic attempts to revive it and it was losing batches of leaves daily, I tossed a hail mary and called my mom. Thank goodness she has a healthy ego, and said to bring it to her house and she will save it. I think I got a call no less than a week later saying it was dead.
Long story short, my mom killed my first gardenia.
Ok, ok the truth is, I was disappointed and sad that I had failed my first houseplant. It made me reevaluate all my skills as a gardener, houseplant enthusiast, and human (alright not that far). That is until my mom told me she had a found a forum of people also in the throws of frantic attempts to save their gardenias. https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/2765922/so-you-want-to-grow-a-gardenia-huh I highly recommend perusing the whole thing but my favorite quote is as follows:
I BOUGHT EIGHT BEAUTIFUL AND FRAGANT GARDENIAS,MYSTERY,FIRST LOVE AND ETC AND AFTER SIX YEARS THESE SIMPLE PLANTS HAS TAUGHT ME HOW TO RELAX.AFTER SIX YEARS I TAKE FOUR VALUIM AND A HALF A GALLON OF SCOTCH AND STAGGER OUT FOR MY NEXT TRY TO KEEP MY ONE PLANT ALIVE.AFTER 3000 HRS ON THE INTERNET,GARDENING BOOKS AND HELP FROM THREE HUNDRED PROFESSIONAL GROWERS AND FOUR GARDENING CDS.HERE WHAT I HAVE LEARN. THEY LIKE WATER BUT YOU HAVE TO KEEP THE SEMI DRY.THEY LOVED SUN BUT YOU HAVE TO KEEP IN THE SHADE.YOU FEED THEM OFTEN.DISCRIBED AS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN TWO DAYS AND TWO YEARS ONLY ON SUNDAYS WITH A BLUE MOON RISING.THEY LOVED NORTHERN EXPOSURE IF YOU HAVE THEM ON THE SOUTHERN.THEY LOVE ACID AND IRON UNLESS YOU GIVE IT TO THEM.THEY LOVE TO GROW SPIDER MITES,WHICH YOU CANT SEE,AND APHIDS. I HAVE FOUND IF YOU BUY OLDER PLANTS THEY TAKE LONGER TO DIE.MY FRIEND SUGGESTED THAT WHEN ONE OF THE SIMPLE PLANTS WASNT DOING WELL TO MOVE TO THE NORTHERN SUN WHICH A LOT.IT DIED QUICKER.WELL I HAVE TO GO NOW MY FRIENDS IN THE WHITE JACKETS ARE COMING TO PULL ME AWAY FROM MY BELOVED GARDENIA. ITS OKAY I HEAR THEY HAVE A SALE ON GARDENIA IN THE NOVELTY SHOP.
That’s what owning a gardenia will do to you. I’m optimistic for the future of this blog.
My gardenia is telling me goodbye. I say goodbye to it and also to the prison it’s held me in for exactly 76 hours of pure freedom. Will it miss me? Will it be ok? What will it tell me when I come back? Did I water it too much before I left? Will my mom be able to tell when it actually needs water instead of when it’s just pretending to need water?
Before I left, I told my gardenia not to bloom while I’m gone. We both had a good laugh at that. Stay healthy little plant.
