We attended the wedding of a family member in Virginia Beach one year ago yesterday, and we left the wedding reception and headed on vacation in Hilton Head, SC. We spent the night near the VA/NC border that night, and the next morning (one year ago today) when leaving the hotel we noticed some beautiful bushes near the hotel entrance and marveled at their beautiful blooms and wonderful scent (photo below). I looked up the species using an app and discovered that it was a gardenia. Ever since, we've wanted to get some...we have a ton of azaleas in our yard and we love them, but the scent of the gardenia is awesome. So, I gave my wife one last month for Mother's Day. It has bloomed a fair amount, but it appears that something is chewing the blooms off before they open and then just dropping them. Do squirrels go after gardenias?