The genus honors Alexander Garden, a Scottish physician who reached Charleston in 1752 at twenty-two, botanized the Carolina Lowcountry, and corresponded with Linnaeus for years. Garden's friends in London pressed Linnaeus for the better part of a decade to hang a name on him. Linnaeus gave way in 1760 and John Ellis published the genus the following year, which means a Southern gardener planting a gardenia is planting a small piece of Carolina natural history along with the best fragrance in the shrub border.

The scent needs no argument. What separates the selections here is cold tolerance and habit: 'Chuck Hayes' and 'Kleim's Hardy' are the two to reach for in the upper South, the first a full double that repeats in late summer, the second a single-flowered, low, tough plant that takes zone 7 winters in stride. 'Daruma' stays dwarf and dense enough for a container beside a door. Give them acid soil, morning sun with afternoon shade, and steady moisture; yellowing leaves usually mean the ground has gone too alkaline or too dry rather than anything more serious.