We’ve arrived in the month of May — the “live your life outside” month of pollen free, longer, warm days when the humidity hasn’t yet taken hold. The month when living things are fully green again, and just sitting outside and drinking in the clear air is what we’ve looked forward to all winter. A group of tropical shrubs with glossy dark green leaves and spectacularly fragrant blooms adds the perfect aroma to the perfect month.

We’re going to zoom quickly back in time when sailing ships revolutionized both world trade and human travel. The fabulous flower that we’re discussing today came to be known when the two forces — global trade and human migration — met in one person: a Scottish physician and botanist, Alexander Garden. Dr. Garden left Scotland and landed in Charleston in the mid-1700s, where he had a home with extensive gardens on Broad Street and a large plantation called Otranto with more gardens north of town.

The shrub that came to be known by his name had already made its way via sailing ship from Asia, where it had been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries, around the tip of Africa, and then to the Charleston area, where Alexander Garden first officially described it. Through the efforts of his friends in the Royal Society, the plant was named for him, Gardenia jasminoides, even though it isn’t actually in the jasmine family but is a member of the Rubiaceae family of plants. This group contains the coffee plant and the tree that produces quinine, the first remedy for malaria.

Gardenia is a tropical plant that thrives in humidity so it grows very well in South Carolina.

Gardenias need acidic soil that is well drained and consistently moist, but as long as the soil is acidic and neither too wet nor too dry, gardenias can thrive in sand, clay, or loamy soil. When gardenias are happy, they produce spectacular blooms from late spring through early summer that will last in a vase for a little less than a week. They like to be fed regularly during the blooming season, and they are particularly troubled by white flies and mealybugs.

We are very fortunate that without knowing a single thing about traditional Chinese medicine, we can provide a modern version of this cure. Simply take a whiff of a gardenia in bloom, and your irritations will float away on the heavenly scented breeze.