Out of season.
A potted gardenia has bloomed for me for the first time ever. This single blossom perfumes our entire guest room with its sweet, creamy, tropical smell; it’s strangely and exotically out of place next to the daffodils shivering just on the other side of the window glass.
I have plans to transplant it outside in mid-May (when the warm weather has decided to stick around for a while) and see how it does in our zone 7B plot. It may just up and die – a lot of people just treat them like annuals in this climate – but if it doesn’t… oooh, even more gardenia blooms next summer. Mmmmm, fragrance. Aaah.