gardenias, ferns and more

forgive me as it has been quite some time since i have been around.  with spring here, and feeling so lovely for the last few days, i thought it appropriate to share yet another one of my passions - plants and flowers.   i love them all!  i keep them in the house.  i have a very large container garden all spring, summer and fall.  i give them as gifts.  i grow bulbs for the holiday season.  i adore one of mother nature's finest gifts to us.  so i start with the most stunning and aromatic of them - the gardenia.

i chose this because my mother is to turn 70 in april and it is her flower of choice to smell till she can't smell anymore.  i am having a large corsage made for her as a surprise and i know she will just be in heaven!  a little history on this oh so pristine beauty: 

having hailed from south africa, gardenia's are named after dr. garden, the friend of botanist, linnaeus.  discovered in 1754 by captain hutcheson en route home from england to india.  hutcheson said he gone for a walk on shore, become aware of a sweet, heavy scent, turned around, and seen a mass of huge, double white flowers.  breathtaking.  he dug it up and took it back to london.  a tricky plant to grow, gardeners still persist on as the reward of their intoxicating beauty is so well worth it.  something also worth noting is that all of the gardenia that you smell in a perfume is entirely synthetic simply because the essential oil of the flower smells nothing like the blossom.  i would much rather have the real flower than the synthetic version.  

now onto the fern.  i spent the morning at one of my favorite places - garfield park conservatory.  stephen and i venture down there usually in spring when we are dire need of humidity, warmth and green.  we walk slowly making our way around the main grand room and head into the fern room.  it is sublime to me.  i could sit in there for hours and be completely content staring at the ferns and their complexity from the tiniest pinhead size of a fern to the grandest and tallest of them.  so i crept around them all today capturing their beauty up close and yet it still wasn't close enough.  i am fascinated by the texture on each leaf and stem. i just stare and stare and stare.  they don't do well in our house even with our faux humidity in the winter.  so i save them for summer when we are not short of it at all and they can relish the moisture on our porch with a smile.  enjoy my sampling!

last but definitely not least were the succulents and azaleas.  just as fantastic as the ferns -the texture of succulents and their multitude of shapes and sizes is enough to keep me busy all day!  azaleas and bougainvillea's color is electric and just what your eyes and soul need after a grey grey winter.  take delight in the complexity and saturation as i do & we'll speak sooner than later i promise as i have to share my past easter decor!  be well - marlo