The Delicate and Pure Gardenia Flower

My favorite flower is the gardenia. This has a great deal to do with the environment in which I grew up. In our village in Huanggang, many households grew gardenias in front of and behind their houses.

The gardenias we grew are not the potted ones sold in cities today; we grew gardenia trees, which are perennial and can grow into shrubs two or three meters tall. In summer, each tree bears as many as several hundred gardenia buds, and every morning quite a few flowers open. When the gardenias bloom, the branches are a picture of pure white, the whole courtyard is filled with delicate fragrance, and passersby can smell it.

Village girls did not have as many ornaments as city girls, and in my day there was no perfume either. In summer, the young girls and young married women of the village liked to pin a gardenia flower in their buns; that natural fragrance truly surpassed all perfume, and the pure white gardenia was more than a match for any gold or silver jewelry.

In my day, although material goods were scarce, people could guarantee basic food and clothing, and everyone's spirits seemed rather good. Villagers were easily satisfied; picking a gardenia on a summer day and carrying it with one could keep a person in a good mood for a long time.

My parents did not plant gardenias in our courtyard, but I always wanted to grow a large gardenia tree in our yard. Gardenia trees can be propagated by cuttings; we would cut a branch from a large gardenia tree and insert it into the soft mud of the rice paddy, then transplant it after it took root. Unfortunately I never once succeeded in taking a cutting. Fortunately, my uncle's family had one, and his house was right next to ours, so I could often pick some gardenias from his place, put them in a bowl, and keep them in water for a few days. This does not sound like something a boy would love to do, but in fact many boys in our village liked doing it back then, because we had very few entertainment options and this was one of our great pleasures. My peers should deeply relate to this.

Looking back, even as a child I always wanted to keep improving the living environment of our home. Besides wanting to grow a gardenia tree, I also wanted to grow azaleas and cockscombs, to make our yard very beautiful, and to raise a local dog. My parents never helped me realize these wishes, but they also did not stop me from tinkering. They let me do whatever I was experimenting with. This attitude gave my hands-on ability a good workout and let me gain much pleasure from growing flowers and raising small animals, although I always failed more than I succeeded.

After studying TCM, I learned that gardenia is a medicinal herb with the actions of draining fire and eliminating vexation, promoting diuresis, andrelieving jaundice; applied externally it can also treat traumatic injuries, so my affection for the gardenia deepened a little. Cancer patients often have jaundice and ascites, and gardenia is a commonly used herb; I now use gardenia almost every day. When I type the two characters for gardenia, I easily think of those delicate, pure gardenias I saw in my hometown as a child.

My greatest wish now is that one day I can return to the countryside, with a courtyard of moderate size behind the house, and in that courtyard there must be a gardenia tree, so that all summer long I can enjoy life in the delicate fragrance of gardenias. This most primitive and instinctive joy is easily obtained; if a person can be content with this, living will never be tiring. By the way, in my current view, having a courtyard behind the house is truly one of a person's basic needs. A beautiful living environment can improve one's quality of life, but looking across the world, ordinary people like us can only have a courtyard by living in the sparsely populated countryside.

Gardenia grows best in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and is hard to grow well in Beijing. I have tried growing potted gardenias in Beijing many times, but none survive for long. The best time, I grew a small potted gardenia into a shrub and later repotted it in an extra-large planter, but except for the first year it did not bloom in any of the other years. Then once, when I returned to my hometown for the Spring Festival, no one watered it for a long time; when I came back, that pot of gardenia had withered to death, and I felt sorry for it for a long time.

Now I am still trying hard to figure out the technique of growing gardenias in Beijing; after one pot dies, I will buy another after a while and try again. There is a therapy called horticultural therapy that can cure many physical and mental illnesses. But in my view, this therapy only works for people like me who love the countryside and love gardening. My personal experience tells me that when we are immersed in the joy of growing beautiful flowers and green plants, the things that trouble most people in the world truly become mere trifles not worth minding.