Gardenias Galore

 

I love gardenias. My favorite is the old timey one that some folks call cape jasmine. It came from southern China and Japan and has a fragrance that literally perfumes the entire yard. These past few days I have been enjoying them. I have two large Gardenia jasminoides in my yard. They are easy to root and grow quickly. Sometimes they need a little pruning to keep in shape, but they are about as carefree as a shrub can get. They get a few yellow leaves which they shed right before they put on their new growth and flowers in late spring.
I like them so much that I occasionally stop by the bush and pluck one to eat. They have a firm texture that is not unpleasant and just a faint taste like their fragrance. I wish I could get tea flavored like that. I sometimes add them to a green salad for a nice surprise.
The only drawback to Gardenias is that they generally play host to a colony of white flies. If you buy one that is white fly free, you need to wonder what they treated it with that got rid of them. Maybe you do not want it. The strange thing about those white flies is that they seem to run their course and then die off for the most part. I suppose they could spread to other plants, but mine never do, not even on adjacent shrubs. If they bother you too bad, spray the bush with some dish liquid diluted with water. The next day give the bush a good hosing off. That should get rid of the majority of the white flies. Water may make the flowers turn yellow but more will soon open. And they still smell good even if they turn yellow.
Gardenias are members of the coffee family, Rubiaceae. They have shiny deep green leaves and most are fragrant. There are 142 different gardenias.
I also have 3 ever-blooming gardenias. They have a big flush of blooms in early summer and usually have a few open the rest of the summer. Occasionally there will appear a bloom or two in winter. The flowers are smaller than G. jasminoides and the leaves are smaller also. They can grow just as big as their cousin though.. I have 3 of these in my yard, and they are my favorites. They originally came from a friend of Hugo’s in horticulture that also gave him some azaleas with purplish leaves.
The third kind of gardenia I have is called forest gardenia and it only has it’s first set of true leaves. It is a seedling from some seed I ordered from eBay. I had seen this plant last year in Hawaii and was overjoyed to find seed for it. It is my favorite Gardenia. The flower has a very long floral tube that is pollinated by hawk moths. (Hawk moth offspring is known as tomato horn worm in these parts.)
The fourth kind of gardenia I grow is my favorite. I got it years ago at a plant sale at the Birmingham Botanical Garden. It was labeled Flower of Love. I have since found out that this is another common name for gardenias in general. So I am not any wiser than I was from merely looking at that plant and saying “That looks like a Gardenia.” It is a tropical plant also and will not tolerate frost. I grow it in pots and it produces smaller white fragrant flowers. Like all the gardenias I have had experience with, it roots readily in moist soil and grows rapidly. It takes pruning with ease so when my plants go back in the greenhouse for winter, I just prune it to fit available space.