Gardenia Tree

[cici ramirez]

Hello I have a beautful Gardenia Tree I am sure it is the aimme Gardenia tree. has anyone ever grown it and over wintered it in the norht east of the US?

[Frank]

I guess you could call my gardenia a gardenia tree as it is on a graft stock.

gardenia is over 35 years old and I keep it inside in cold months and outside from about May to October. I live in Northern Delaware.

When kept inside, it gets spider mites which are kept under control with misting and wiping. Once it got scale which required a systemic to eliminate. The gardenia is in a 16 inch pot which is about as big as I can handle and is kept in check with pruning and occasional root pruning.

I've been able to clone numerous plants from cuttings and they grow well and flower.

[David E. Ross]

If your gardenia is tree-like, it might indeed be Gardenia jasminoides 'Aimée', which can grow 6 ft tall.

G. jasminoides is hardy to 20°F. Unless your gardenia is in a container that can be moved indoors in the winter, it will survive the winter only in Florida or southern Georgia in the eastern U.S. On top of that, it needs a hot summer to bloom. With enough summer heat and a winter without serious frost, it can even bloom on and off all year long.

[allen73]

Gardenias can be damaged by cold temperatures. So move potted gardenias inside when temperatures drop below 60 to 65 degrees at night. Consider transferring garden gardenias into pots for the winter if your area experiences freezing nights in the winter. Use a garage or greenhouse to overwinter your gardenias. Do not disturb the plant or its leaves while you're moving it; gardenias do not like to be disturbed or handled. Fertilize your gardenias once a month, even in the winter. Put a layer of fertilizer around the base of the plant.

[Frank]

I assume different gardenia types might respond to different conditions. In my case, mentioned above, I never move the plant indoors on a cold summer night. I saw gardenia bushes outside in Myrtle Beach, SC where they sometimes get snow and frost.

My gardenia winters inside the house in the living room and I only fertilize it sparsely twice a year.

[David E. Ross]

My Gardenia jasminoides 'Veitchii' is in the ground, not in a container. Only in July-September do night-time low temperatures average above

60F. Last moneth (May), the low remained above 60F on only two nights. The plant has been in bloom for about two weeks now.

It survived the "great freeze of 2007" (13-14 January 2007) when the temperature dropped to 32F and my statice (Limonium perezii) died. It has survived other sub-40 temperatures. With enough summer heat, it sometimes blooms through the winter, when average night-time lows are

50F and below.

[Garrapata]

probably not outside of a greenhouse requires at least zone eight

[Don Phillipson]

The Central Experimental Farm (Ottawa Canada) specializes in winter hardiness information (and is located north of all the continental USA.)