Gardenia Quotes

“She breathed in the sweet air deeply. Gardenias, if she wasn't mistaken. She once had a gardenia bush back at home, and sometimes when it was blooming, she'd crack open her bedroom window to get whiffs of the smell all night, then wake up sweaty because gardenias always bloomed in May, except every so often, when a deep-summer flower would bloom well past its season.”
― Ashley Clark, The Dress Shop on King Street

“The fragrance of the gardenias along the porch carried on the breeze. The blooms were always sweetest from freshly opened buds. But they had to fall, they had to change, for the roots to grow. So that next season, more buds would open, and the fragrance would spread even farther.
Gardenias. She had never painted gardenias before.
But they bloomed all at once as she'd never noticed them blooming years prior, and the fragrance was so alluring that the smell of it matched the delicate strokes of her smallest paintbrush, and it was the first of May and the first of so many other things, she was sure.”
― Ashley Clark, Paint and Nectar

“She heard the twitter of the bluebirds whose families had lived here for decades and longer, and she saw one out-of season, beautifully pure gardenia. And the fragrance of it was so sweet, so innocent, that it was fairy dust to her senses. Smelling it sent her tumbling back and forth through time.
And she was at once a young woman dancing in William's arms and an older woman returning to Eden with a new appreciation for its hard-won innocence.”
― Ashley Clark, Paint and Nectar

“She pulled out her green-and-white polka-dot dress with the satin ribbon that tied at the waist, and the matching satin trim that ran along the hem of its ruffled skirt. She would normally only wear a dress like this to a wedding, or on Easter Sunday, but if she was going on this outing with Lottie to Maison Blanche, she had to look the part of someone who belonged there.
Because she did belong there.
She was just as good as anybody else who set foot in that establishment, and she was going to make sure everyone who was there knew it.
Tiana pulled the dress over her head and pinned the barrette Ms. Rose had given her as a gift behind her ear. It had tiny gardenias attached to it, adding an elegant touch to her ensemble. She swished around from left to right in the mirror, admiring the way her dress twirled about her legs.”
― Farrah Rochon, Almost There

“Gardenia: A flowering shrub in the madder family with large white blossoms whose plush, peachy scent offers comfort to those who are grieving”
― Meg Donohue, The Memory Gardener