Something happened to my 50 year old gardenia bush last fall or winter. I am not sure what variety I have. I can provide pictures if helpful.
During that time, the plant dropped most of the large green leaves. Now, the remaining long branches only have very small leaves and stunted blossoms. The usual spring growth of large new leaves and new blossoms just won't start.
What can I do to revive my gardenia? Feeding it with Gardenia, Azalea Camellia food twice has not caused increased large leave growth or new blossoms. Should I prune back the long branches?
Check to make sure your gardenia food contains zinc. Gardenias need as much zinc as do citrus trees. I found that some (not all) Ace Hardware stores can order zinc sulfate in 5 lbb bags for under $10. A 5 lbb bag should last you the rest of your life since a gardenia take about 1 Tbs per month in the growing season.
On the other hand, most plants -- even trees -- have a finite lifespan. Perhaps your gardenia is just too old. A severe pruning might rejuvenate it, but such a pruning might also kill it.
I lost one gardenia that I had as a house plant but take out in the summer to scale. It and a second gardenia were also infested with spider mites which are easily controlled with soapy spray and I thought that was the cause. When I finally figured out problem was scale, treatment with a systemic saved the one plant. Regular insecticides and mitacides would not work.
"Billy" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...
I don't know of it being such an exception, most plants can be easily IDed by their leaves only. Most mature trees and woody shrubs can easily be IDed by their bark only. And flowers alone are not alwasy so indicative of IDing the plant, many of the experts, even those self proclaimed "professionals" here have problems IDing by flower only and typically guess, wrongly, and/or ask for a more detailed picture of the entire plant. Most often IDs are made by leaves... very few can ID say an oak tree by just their flower but most anyone, even those with black thumbs, recognize an oak leaf immediately. The leaf structure is the easiest way to recognize poison ivy. I'm no botanist, not by any stretch of the imagination, yet I can immediately ID on sight most any tree/shrub that grows in my zone by their leaf and/or bark, even by their growth habit configuration, even with dropped leaves, but not usually by their flower alone unless I have a reference book to peruse for comparison. Anyone who tells me they can ID an apple tree from a peach tree from their blossoms alone easier than from their fruit I call a liar... it's not so simple to ID from flowers, even highly trained botanists need a reference for comparison for an accurate ID, but no one can't tell a pear from an apple blind folded just by tasting, I can tell just by feel... one can recognize a Sick Gardenia by its shriveled fruit! LOL
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