I'm the one that said just buy a house that already has an established gardenia.

Well, my two monster bushes (about 4 1/2' high, wide and deep each) have a lot of yellow leaves this year. Yikes!

So do a lot of things in the yard. Apparently, there is some kind of disease that is taking over!:panic: Almost all of my fruit trees are looking stressed and covered with little orange dots. Most of my vegetables (tomato, pepper, eggplant, ect.) had yellow leaves even before I got them in their pots. Granted, I was really late getting them in, but I've never seen the kind of widespread disease that has appeared this year.

I swear, it seems like the gardening gods have some kind of sinister master plan for me.

The orange dots sound like scale. I haven't had it in years and I don't remember what treats it.
I used to get it on mints. I just threw the mints out.

Okay so my months-old gardenia has finally died...it was a long drawn-out death. I think these plants are so shiny, green & lush at the nurseries because the growers use some of that MG super fert made specifically for nurseries, a super-strength potion, I've read. No wonder they are so bewitching and lure us in with their beauty and intoxicating fragrance.
Mine never even bloomed. Had some unopened blossoms on it that promptly fell off as soon as it saw my garden.
R.I.P., my last gardenia. :cry:

My condolences. It's a love-hate relationship with gardenias, that's for sure.
I almost caved at the nursery the other day, but made myself walk by.
For now...

You know what I discovered as I yanked out this dead plant? That there were actually 3 to 4 small plants, each with its own roots, planted together to give the appearance of one large mature plant. Pretty deceptive, I think. The one I had before this one WAS one large plant, with one root system, as I saw after it stayed alive but practically flowerless for almost 4 years.
Doesn't matter now as I will never grown them again. They love humidity and that is one thing we can't give them here in my area.

True. But right now the humidity's making me sick. It's thick and sticky. I can take anything but humidity. Glad it's uncommon here.

I hate when growers do that! It can be a death sentence for woody perennials, because the root systems essentially strangle each other. I suspect they may have fared better if they had been separated and root pruned. Root pruning is rather scary at first, but it's increased my success with perennials by leaps and bounds.

So I succumbed and bought a gardenia about a month ago. I was afraid to say anything about it lest it die on me. Thankfully... it's thriving 0.0 It's in a pot with just pine bark compost. Fertilized it heavily with ammonium based (acid) fertilizer, epsom salts and gypsum. I water it with rainwater or acidified tap water whenever I'm not lazy. It's growing like crazy! It's had a few blooms, but I don't think it'll go all out until the nights get cooler.

Let's see how long my good luck lasts...

I hate it when you pull open what looks like one plant and there are two or three crammed in there. My gardenia standard is actually TWO plants in a three gallon pot, stripped bare from the roots to about four feet up, staked, and then trimmed into a ball. Not sure it's even worth bothering with, but I'm attempting to let it grow out into a proper bush.

I just bought acid food for my potted shooting star hydrangea and the box says also for gardenias.....
Hmmmmm....

I have discovered THE SECRET TO GARDENIAS.

Treat them like an annual! :twisted:

I'm going to root some cuttings from my surviving plant, grow them all winter as a houseplant, and maybe by spring I'll have some more plants to throw at the spot I know they should survive.

Also, there are apparently all sorts of gardenias besides the jasminoides we know and love (to hate). I wonder if some of these "well-established, hardy" bushes are actually one of those!