Always Growing

This post, “Check Those Containers” was written for my WordPress blog called Always Growing by Jan in Covington, Louisiana 

Daisy gardenia  (Gardenia jasminoides ‘Daisy’) is a single-flowered gardenia.  My mother rooted mine from her bush.  She had rooted me one a few years back, but it was lost in Katrina.  It was crushed by a falling pine tree.  She was sweet enough go to the trouble of rooting another one last summer for me, and today it is big enough to plant in the garden.  Its first flower opened this morning.

When we moved in to our house thirty years ago, we had fifteen large gardenia bushes lining a circular driveway and about twenty-five lining the southeastern property line.  When they were in bloom (and they were when we first saw the house), it was a spectacular sight.  They also perfumed the whole neighborhood.  Gradually though, most of those original plants died.  I do not know if it was from old age, or if we just were so inexperienced that we didn’t know how to take care of them properly.  But, anyway, they gradually declined, and now we have only two left, and those resprouted after we had cut them down.  I have added a few new ones to the garden because the flowers are so pretty and the aroma is so wonderful

The daisy gardenia from my mom is different in that it is a single and not a double like the others.  It, too, takes morning sun this far south and full sun farther north, is hardy to zone 7, likes well-drained soil, and grows to about five feet.  Mine is still little, but it is covered in blooms. 

This evergreen shrub with its single blooms is a welcome addition to my garden.  Not only because it is an attractive, blooming, and fragrant plant, but also because mom went to the trouble of rooting it for me.