Gardenias

My love of plants and nature started early. I am by no means a Master Gardener, but I do enjoy spending time outdoors, taking care of plants, and watching things grow. As a child, I enjoyed coming home after school and spending nearly an hour outside watering the yard by hand. We planted tomatoes for fun one year, and I would water them everyday. I did make the unfortunate mistake of sprinkling too much fertilizer on them because I didn't understand that fertilizer was essentially poison in massive amounts. So the tomato plants that grew did wonderfully. And the ones that got too much fertilizer...died. Of course, gardening and taking care of plants takes an immense amount of work, and that didn't last too long for a teenager.

I did also compost in a 5-gallon bucket as a child. I put dead leaves and grass and a bunch of random things in a bucket and filled it with water. And then I left it there for years and years and years in our backyard on the patio, filling it with water every now and then. I think my dad finally realized one day that he needed his bucket so he dumped everything out and took his bucket back. What he dumped out though was a nice hunk of composted soil, perhaps a little too dry from lack of care, but it was compost.

Last night, Jonathan and I went to Lowe's just to walk around and take a peek at their plants. We browsed the clearance shelves and came across some bargain finds. Of course, with bargain prices come brown leaves and "seemingly lifeless" plants. However, with my love of plants and growing nature, I committed to reviving some plants with great potential. Here's what we found.

This larger friend was $3. He's got some good
green leaves and great potential. You can't tell from the
picture but there's small buds coming
out of the bottom. He has so much potential.

This little friend was $1. I know he's not the prettiest
plant in the pack, but he has potential! I see it in the baby
branches emerging.

They're gardenia plants. I absolutely love gardenias. The smell brings me back to my childhood when we used to go to my grandparent's house and I would cut the flowers off when they bloomed and put them into vases. Right now they're chilling on our back patio because they need partial shade. I'm hoping they can still grow with slightly less sunlight because the location I want to plant them is almost full shade. Of course, different sources say different amounts of sunlight, and a variety of people have had success growing in different locations, so, I won't know until I put it in. But I want to freshen them up first before transplanting. 

Ideally, I wanted azaleas to plant in my shady location, but once again, the different websites and plant tags say different amounts of sunlight requirements. So rather than taking a $30 risk, I went with the $4 risk. I actually want to plant Japanese Astilbe, but nurseries don't have any in season right now so I will wait until spring for that one.

Jonathan also found a nice bargain find last night. He got himself a cute little $4 succulent basket for his office.

What a cutie.

Unlike me, his little succulent basket will be much easier to maintain than my gardenias that need to be revived. But we'll see.

Stay tuned for future pictures and updates on my gardenia plants!