The small plants continue to develop a ton of new buds over winter. Around Christmas, they are loaded with buds of all ages. I move one in my hot and dry bedroom. She shows no symptom of stress. The first flower opened shortly after the new year.

Do you remember their fragrance? My bedroom is filled with this elegant scent for almost 2 weeks now. It brings pure joy. Oh, Gardenia my love.

Here are some images:

This is the detail of a new born bud last year.

Oh that is a beauty. I have to pick one up as soon as I see some healthy ones in the stores. What fertilizer are you using?

Other than this, bright light and correct watering are crucial. To begin with, a soil-humidity meter ($10 from WM) helps a lot. Do not water the plant until it reads "quite dry" all over the pot.

Thanks for that information. I have both acid plant food (powder) and one of those meters. All I need is the gardenia now. :)

And a pleasant visitor on another.

None of the others are even starting to bud yet.

With a lovely hummingbird, it appears that ankraras’ plant is outside. Judging by the climate of Las Vegas, I guess you have coolness in late December? It is different in Nova. We have rains and cool days in October. Because everyone says how difficult these are, I never expect these to bloom. Personally, I find these not particularly hard to keep. Their surreally shining leaves have already conquered me … then, they did just that - These showed buds in mid-October. I still remember the joyful surprise that day. Now, they are literally "loaded with buds"; and one pristine flower has since opened. The wafting fragrance is pleasantly sweet, elegant and wild.

ankraras, as far as I could remember, you are into succulents? I might remember the wrong person. What is Supannee? Also, would you share a full-shot of your plants?

Your gardenia is just beautiful, really healthy with dark green leaves. You are definitely doing the right thing for your plant. What variety is your gardenia? Thanks for sharing your pics.

I recently (a month or so ago) purchased my first,second and third gardenia. I have two Miami Supreme, one potted, one planted in the ground and one Dwarf Radicans (potted).
So far it is doing well, and hoping to get blooms this spring. Doing my best to keep the green leaves from yellowing. Appreciate you sharing your watering, fertilizing program. I really want these plants to do well. I will be checking back for more progress.

Nice plant ankraras!

snasxs;- Here is a pic of the plant.

I attempted a hardy gardenia one year and another indoor variety neither of which lasted long. Might be my mindset as I am used to growing plumeria and bananas. I'll have to read more posts on gardenia to up my chances of survival.

Any problems with spider mites? That seems to be my worst enemy for tropicals indoors during the winter months. I too live in N. VA so our growing conditions are the same.

If only the internet could share the smells of Gardenia. Looking forward to more updates and photos.

If you are not experienced with house plants, you might start with Jade plant, wax begonia and Jasmine. After you know how to keep these, gardenia is not all that difficult. Gardenia veitchii easily sets a large number of buds. Mine blooms all the way to next summer. To control pest, I use "mite/insect spray for house plants". They sell these at Wal-Mart and Lowes all the time. It is cheap but efficient. I have no pest throughout winter.

I bought the original plant in New York. It was blooming; so I knew what I was getting.

I ended up getting the 4 inch potted gardenia for $6. They also had the larger size for $12 and those were the ones that were flowering. However, my smaller one has plenty of buds so I'll keep my fingers crossed that they actually open.

I know it has been a while since this thread was active, but I just stumbled upon it and being quite the novice with gardenias wondered how long you keep up fertilizing with each watering? This isn't continuous is it? I bought my first gardenia a year ago, it had tons of buds, which one by one wilted and fell off. Then I had a few spider mite infestations. I presently seem to have a pretty healthy looking plant, it has replaced much of the foliage that fell off previously. I have no buds now, but it looks healthy. So, back to my original question, you said you fertilized every watering, but do you stop this at any point? Thanks.

If your meter comes from WM, then I would not water for readings 5-8. Gardenia indeed tolerates readings 2-3. I water when the pot is 2-4.5 throughout.

If you don’t know how to post pictures, you can email them to me. You can click "My Page" and then "send me an email". I will post the pictures for you.

Your picture is way to small for a detailed analysis, but judging from the color, it might be suffering from a little chlorosis (failure of chlorophyll production or repair).

Make *dead* sure that every single fertilizer feed you ever give the plant is acidic. Miracid or other Azalea fertilizer certainly works. Coffee ground might do the trick, but haven't tried that - snasxs would more likely know if it works.

About overwatering - it's actually hard to overwater a gardenia if the drainage is a good as it should be. Think cactus soil (ok, nothing like orchid bark, but cactus soil would be in the right direction).

I'm posting a link to the most important article I ever read about plants, horticulture, botany, and gardening. Tapla's soil thread :)

Your gardenia is very pretty, from the picture I don't see a lot of yellowing leaves, but it might be hard to see. What type of soil do you have it in?

I agree with Erict, make sure you have a fast draining soil. Overwatering and not draining properly or staying too wet for long periods of time will often lead to root rot. If you have the time read(the post he listed above) its very long, but full of great information on container growing and container soil mix. I have my potted gardenias in Al's mix and I just love it. Occasional yellow leaves are very common as long as the majority of the leaves are dark green and healthy with new growths you should not worry about the few yellow leaves. I feed mine with miracid every two weeks according to the package directions and every 4-5 weeks I add chelated iron to keep the leaves dark green. My gardenias prefer morning sun and afternoon shade(FL). I keep my gardenia watered well, moist soil(not Wet). With the mix I am using I water this time of year every 2 days unless we get rain. In the winter 3-4 days. Everyones growing area, temps, humidity is different so this is not set in stone. Just guidelines for this type of soil that I'm using...

Good luck with your gardenia!

The problems we are talking about are in the cold/alkaline north – say Minnesota, New York, etc.

I would not worry at all.

Al's mix can be found by searching in the Container Forum under Al(tapla) Soil Mix. But if you use cactus soil, you can add 30-40% perlite,you can also add some fir bark, or pine bark(used for orchids)it would help a lot in draining well.I got chelated iron at H.depot, you can get it at Lowe's. You can use the one that is labeled Chelated Palm Nutritional/Chelated Citrus Nutritional. Both works well for correcting yellowing leaves. Just follow the directions on the bottle. Any fert. that says good for azaleas, camelias (acid loving plants) will work, follow the directions on the pkg. I use mine every two weeks, as per recommendation. I also have a water meter, sometimes it doesn't work properly. I have heard that it can sometimes give a false reading, when you fertilize. If you go to the search box,type in "Watering and Moisture Meter Questions", read the post written by (Tapla)Al, he explains it very well. I will post a couple of pics of my gardenia later that is planted in Al's potting mix. My computer is acting up with downloading pics...Hope this can be of some help to you.

It might be okay in Florida to water your gardenia in ground when "the first inch or 2 of soil starts to feel on the dry side". For a potted Gardenia, "Water when the top 2 inches feel dry" is a classical false-instruction. "Keeping the soil evenly moist" is, in fact, the key to kill a healthy plant.

Good luck!

Which Bayer did she use? If she used a 12 month formula, you shouldn't use it again for at least one year... I posted a link below on the Bayer that I used that is recommended for outdoor container plants (Once a year application )The recommendation for the one I used would have been (3+1/3 Tablespoon) for a 10 Gal. container, so you are fine since she used 3 Tablespoons, assuming you used this one. Just let it do its thing and let it dry out a bit. I have also used these on plants that don't have any bugs but are next to plants that have been infected. I use it to "prevent" them from getting it. I like it since its once a year application...I use it on most of my flowering and tropical plants(Non -Edibles).

My gardenia is in very fast draining soil, that is why I water so often. If your soil is not this porous, it will take a while for your soil to dry out...If your soil is mostly peat, Snasxs is right you shouldn't have it moist all the time, let it dry out a little bit top(few inches) before watering again.

Let it recover from the things that you have put in, hopefully you will get some blooms...

I have a problem myself. The top leaves are eaten by some bugs. They sometimes eat a half to the whole leaf. But the insects do not stay on the Gardenia. So I don’t know what bugs they are, or when the leaves were eaten. I killed a green cricket-like bug the other day. I also have very destructive squirrels around messing with my plants.

What meter do you have? Can you upload a picture? Lol. If your meter reads "dry" after you just watered it, you need a replacement. The meter is obviously broken. Could it have something to do with your pugs?

Do you think you have some caterpillars or snails eating your leaves? I have noticed them on my papaya tree, ate most of the leaves off last year. There must have been 10-12 of them on the leaves. I have also seen snails eating my Poinsettia leaves. Hope you figure out what kind of bugs you are dealing with? Good luck...

Glad she used that Bayer. Sounds like she used close to the right amount. Miracle gro or Walmart brand is probably about the same, WM will be cheaper...any brand that says for acid loving plants should work. About the vinegar thing I attached a link from the Container forum that might be useful in explaining what it is used for. I think it has more to do with lowering the PH from your tap water?

Wow, six gardenias, sounds like your really like them...they are very pretty plants, especially when they are nice, healthy and blooming. Enjoy them!

The picture is hilarious.

Glad things are improving on your gardenias...Sorry haven't posted in a while, went to TN on a family reunion, small town with horriblei internet connections. Barely got a signal and thought would just wait till I got home.

snasxs, glad you liked the picture, lol...

Looking forward to pics of your dogs...

Thanks for the pics

The link I posted below should be very helpful about your question. Hope it helps...

From time to time, I wait until the young twigs slightly wilt before I water my Gardenia. I never lose any leaf or bud this way.

In my observation, "losing leaves" are exclusively caused by over-watering, fertilizer-burn and/or pests.

If your soil is staying wet too long, you can repot it to a more draining soil, but that could cause you lose your buds...Just let it dry out a little more between waterings and then maybe after all the flowers bloom you can repot it by adding more perlite and add some pine bark(orchid mix) to your miracle grow soil. I don't use that soil, because it is mostly peat. Remember I use Al(tapla) soil mix.

By the way thanks for the Liquid iron info, right now I use chelated iron, probably similar to what you bought...

Good luck!

The wood dowel that I mentioned on the above post can be purchased at Home depot or Lowes, get one that's 1/4" thick or similar. Stick the wood dowel in the soil halfway down, when you pull it out and the soil is wet, don't water...till the soil comes out ALMOST DRY.

Thanks for posting those beautiful pictures...

Someday soon, I will post mine. I keep putting it off too...:-). I now have 4 in 4 inch containers, 2 in 12 inch , and 2 in 10 inch containers..Almost as many gardenias now as my citrus,,,lol.
I have "Miami Supreme, August beauty, and some from Thailand. One flowers yellow!! Nice looking
I would like to add one thing though to this post. I have found that the longer I keep my grow lights on, and the more sun they get, the less yellow leaves I get. But if I try to save money and give less light, or if it is cloudy for a few days, I seem to get some yellow leaves more frequent even though the watering is perfect. So now I just keep the lights on all day, and no yellow leaves, and the flowers open alot better. You could get a tan under my lights...lol
Mike