The Glorious Gardenia

One day a neighbor told me that I “have a brown thumb.” I had never really heard this phrase before then, so I wasn’t quite sure how to receive it. The only connection I could make with that statement was with the euphemism Brown Nose. Since I knew where the Brown Nose had been I could only infer that the Brown Thumb hadn’t journeyed to any place different. And how many times had I heard a coach tell me, “Get your thumb out of your ass!” Anyway, you get the idea. I wasn’t sure whether to feel insulted or stupid, neither of which are a good thing to be. I stood there silently trying to calculate what this meant, my lips forming a thin line, brows furrowed, and eyes glancing about my peripheral as I searched my scrapheap of a brain for a meaning. My neighbor must have picked up on this.

“It means everything you grow tends to die. You know, as opposed to having a green thumb?” she added.

“Ah yes, I guess that’s true enough,” I chuckled, secretly relieved.

And it is true. Everything I try to grow does, in fact, die. And VERY quickly. To date I have killed a ficus, two corn plants, a pomegranate tree, hibiscus, rosebush, an entire herb garden, and a multitude of ornamental plants. It’s a gift I reckon - I am a herbological hitman. Regrettably, the plant at the top of my kill-list is the beloved gardenia shrub. I’ve killed FIVE to be exact. Which is a shame because I dearly love gardenia blossoms. I’m like that Bugs Bunny cartoon about the Abominable Snowman - I will literally love them to DEATH. There is a strange voodoo to successfully growing a gardenia, and I don’t know what it is.

So today I’m giving an appreciative shout-out to the glorious gardenia. It’s not only my favorite flower, but its intoxicating fragrance has made it a favorite here in the South and the world over. With soft creamy pedals framed by dark, glassy emerald leaves there is something undeniably classy about it.

Perhaps that’s why Billie Holiday, who was famous for accessorizing her hair with white flowers, chose the gardenia most often. In this photo from the Library of Congress,

you see her wearing what appears to be the larger ‘Hadley’ variety. Bud Kliment, author of the biography Billie Holiday, wrote that her famous look happened entirely by accident.

“One night before a performance, Holiday burned her hair with a curling iron. (Singer Sylvia Sims), who was in the room with her, promptly went to a club down the street, where the coat check girls were selling flowers. Sims bought a big white gardenia and gave it to Holiday, who wore it that night to cover the burned section of her hair. She liked wearing the flower so much that she began to put a gardenia in her hair before every performance.”

For me, my biggest attraction to the flower are the rich memories surrounding it. Being one of my mother’s favorite flowers, she introduced me to it at a very young age. So as I was growing up, seeing a gardenia shrub blossom was on par with seeing an angle descend from the heavens. Like seeing the first Monarch butterfly of the season flutter past, or noticing the first red leaf of Autumn on the sidewalk, or watching a pair of blue jays grace your yard as they pick up pine needles to nest with. It’s one of those things that make you give pause to appreciate the beautifully simple things in the world.

My grandfather adored the gardenia as well. Whenever he saw a new gardenia blossom in the morning, he would clip it and pin it to the visor of his truck so he could enjoy its lingering perfume going to and from work. Who says flowers aren’t manly? When my wife and I were on our second date, guess which flowers I presented her with? She even wore them in her hair, à la Billie Holiday, at our wedding.

Now just over a year ago, on Father’s Day, my wife and kids presented me with a gardenia bush (pictured at the top). And I’m happy to report that so far I have managed to avoid killing it. Moreover, it seems to thrive throughout most of the year, producing those sacred blossoms I love so much. With every bloom and smell comes a flood of pleasant memories. And yes, every now and then I too pin a blossom to my visor. Occasionally I adorn my hair with them, but it creeps out my wife. So it’s probably a good idea for me to just stick with the visor.