Gardenia jasminoides - Cape jasmine. C17

Gardenia jasminoides is an evergreen shrub on the rubiaeas family.

It is mainly grown because of their beautiful and fragrant flowers, although it is worth, for its foliage of a glossy deep green.

To help Gardenia to grow properly,  it needs acid and moist soils, regular irrigation, light and humidity.

To keep the plant bushy, it is convenient to trim it after flowering, shaping it, and giving the size that we would like it to have,  this way, at the same time, we will encourage new flowers  which  can be pinched off  once wilted, to even have a more spectacular bush.

During spring we can fertilise, adding a proper acid soil and even we can feed it with micronutrients.

It is also important to add iron chalete, in place where waters have high percentage of cal as its leaves will become yellow  due to the lack of iron chalate.

We will watch to check for possible attacks of mealybugs, or spider mites, this last one appears due to high temperature and low humidity in the environment, as the most frequents.

 



Consulted sources in spite to our experience with this plant:

http://www.thegardenhelper.com/gardenia.htm

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=367