Gardenia plants are a notoriously fickle and complicated plant to grow in your backyard garden. However, the allure of such a beautiful shrub with its sublime fragrance, stunning flowers and rich green foliage is too much for many of us and we give up … we buy them and ‘stick’ them in our gardens and then I wonder why they bloom once, lose their leaves, and eventually die, leaving us with a very impressive dead bush in the garden.
So we come home with our freshly bought gardenia, but what should we do to give our new plant a chance at survival, or rather, what should we do to ensure its demise?
Here are my top 5 tips on how to kill a gardenia:
- Always plant your gardenia shrub near concrete buildings, foundations, or walkways. Chemicals (namely alkalis) contained in concrete leach out over time and accumulate in the soil. Planting your new gardenia close to concrete will ensure that it has a long and slow death. Although, before dying completely, it will reward you with a striking display of yellow leaves that will eventually fall to form a yellow carpet around your ex-gardenia.
- Whatever you do, don’t test the soil’s pH. Gardenia shrubs flourish in slightly acidic soil that has a pH value of between 5.0 and 6.5. You should not test the pH of your soil and under no circumstances use acidic compost when planting, as this will only lead to growing a healthy gardenia. By not testing the soil pH and by not planting in a suitable medium, you will ensure that the gardenia leaves will eventually turn yellow, fall off, and the bush dies.
- Don’t fertilize your gardenia monthly with acidifying fertilizers like those designed for azalea plants, as this will only help your gardenia and prevent the leaves from turning yellow.
- To ensure you kill your gardenia plant quickly, plant it in an area that experiences consistently low temperatures. Gardenias grow best in areas that have daytime temperatures between 68 and 74 degrees F. and around 60 degrees F. at night. Obviously, some varieties of gardenias are more tolerant of temperature and established plants will survive sudden drops in temperature. Plant a gardenia in an area that doesn’t experience these types of temperatures and you’ll be sure to get a dead black-leaved gardenia in no time.
- Do not provide your growing gardenia with the proper amount of water. The soil should be moist but not soggy. If you water, your gardenia won’t flower (the buds will drop before breaking) and those bright green leaves will turn yellow.
By following any of the above points, you are bound to kill your gardenia or seriously reduce its chances of survival. If you don’t follow the above, your gardenia has an excellent chance of surviving and bringing you many years of pleasure to come.