Today, the gardenia

The secret garden. (A favorite space from the OTHER house I lived in in Florida. c. LHMcBride 2013)

I have always loved gardenias. When I was a child, a popular perfume was called Jungle Gardenia. By the time I graduated from high school in the US, I had a practical reason to love the scent, as well; it was so strong, it covered up body odor. Really? Well, it's like this. My boyfriend's best friend was dating a girl we called Dirty Diane because she smelled. When the boy asked me what sort of corsage I thought he might get for her for the prom, I immediately answered "Gardenia." It worked. To a point.

When I bought a house in Florida eons ago, it came with two 30-foot mango trees that tossed the ripe fruit down to us. So much, in fact, that we and ten families couldn't eat it all, so we gave most of it away to an old man who sold the mangoes from a cart west of I-95--which means he sold them in the poor section of town and made some money for himself, sorely needed. He just came into the garden every other day and took what he wanted, leaving us two for ourselves.

We also had a key lime tree that produced fruit about nine months of the year. I made many, many key lime pies, even after giving away a good number of the limes.

And we had a huge, vibrant, dark green, venerable gardenia bush. It had to be ten feet in diameter, and was at least 6 feet tall. I didn't know what it was when we bought the house, as it wasn't in bloom right then. But it was never in any danger from me. First, I don't like insects and snakes, or the bufo toads that inhabited the man-made pond, so I was unlikely to mess around in the garden to begin with and, second, the plantings were so lush and beautiful, there was really no need to do anything at all to them, except the odd trimming and dead-leaf clearing.

When that plant began to bloom, it was as if the gods had answered another prayer. I would pick some gardenias for the house, but mainly, I would stand in front of that bush  almost worshipping it as I drank the scent in for as long as I felt it was seemly to do so. I was alone; the garden was very private. But still, one feels like a cosmic nut sometimes when indulging the senses too deeply.

We sold the house, after only a year, and moved back to New York City. That move remains one of the most painful of the far too many moves in my adult life. I was glad to leave behind the changes in the neighborhood, the precursor to turning it first into a raging slum and later resurrecting it as a business district, with all those lovely old Florida homes turned into doctor's offices and insurance company locations. (The transformation was complete when I revisited the spot about five years ago, and the lovely white clapboard house had been painted a corporate, ugly brown and the front garden paved over.)

But I was immensely sad to leave the gardenia...and the mangoes and key limes. And the breezy Florida room. But mainly the gardenias.

When we moved to England from Maryland three years ago, I left behind my lilac bush--my second-favorite flower--which had finally gotten to the stage of producing abundant blooms. Naturally, we have planted two behind our house in Cornwall, the largest producing--after two years--a small bouquet. I had no gardenia inside or out in Maryland; the winters are too cold for them to survive. And I just didn't get around to finding an indoor one.

Here, in Cornwall, I have a gardenia plant in bloom in the house. It got leggy three winters back when we lived in a rented house while our new one was being finished. But it produces tons of flowers twice a year anyway. It's blooming now. And yes, I stand in front of it at its perch in the window next to the french doors (it FILLS the window) and drink in the scent. I'm thinking of putting it outdoors in a very big pot after this blossom time is done. I'm also thinking of adding a glass greenhouse to the back garden before winter, so I can move it into shelter to winter over. It's really too big for indoors, but I'll be darned if I lose another specimen of my favorite flower.