This One’s for You, Mom

My mother loved gardenias, those fragrant flowers of the deep south.  Sometimes she would bring home a small plant, hoping against hope that she could somehow make the plant thrive and bloom in the California dryness. 

The new plant would have always have a creamy white blossom on it.  “Don’t touch the flower,” she would caution us.  “If you touch it, it will turn brown.”

We would stand and sniff from a distance, and I learned to love the fragrance.  When we moved to the south I was thrilled to see gardenia bushes growing in yards, flourishing in their natural habitat of heat and humidity.

Last week as I assessed my growing plant collection it occurred to me that nothing I had smelled very good.  And then it hit me; I needed a gardenia plant of my own.  I brought it home, repotted it, and set it by the screened in porch.  I know that I will smile every time I smell it, and think of my mom.

This one’s for you, mom.

(I think I’m going to have to touch one of the flowers, just to see what happens!)