Both of these plants are right on the northern edge of their hardiness....or a little beyond it. This past winter was so mild... More people ought to try the Ceratostigma willmotianum in Zone 7. It's a truly blue flower. I'm thinking we're too far north for Gardenia 'Michael' to have a long term future but he's been hanging in there for the past few years and the flowers are "full sized", much larger than those on the other "hardy" gardenias.
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I have a neighbor here in DC trying to grow a (non-hardy) store gift-style gardenia on his front porch. Now, next to a wall, near home heating etc., maybe there's some kind of microclimate the thing will luck out with, but I've seen it lose more leaves then I thought were possible to lose while remaining alive.
There's a narrow line between "hardy" and "non-hardy" gardenias here in the DC area. I used to do many, very many, site visits for Behnke's and on multiple occasions, ~15 say, I came upon "non-hardy" gardenias that had survived, thrived even, for as long as 5 years. Eventually I assume these planting were killed, but with "climate change", our new warmer winters may allow for even longer term success.
As to neighbor, maybe there's some other issue. It ought to be happy now so long as it's getting enough moisture. They don't like to be dry for any time at all, but of course they can't live in saturated soil. Like most plants but a bit shakier about the dry end of the spectrum. Microclimates can be helpful if they block the and wind and cold. It's always shaky to look for winter sun because if a plant heats up a lot during the day, nigh time temperatures are even more dangerous.
We lost a Gardenia jasminoides (Kliem's Hardy) some years ago, and although the scent was amazing, I don't think we have quite the right conditions for a replacement, unfortunately.
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