Gardenia

Gardenia, the Queen of Fragrance!

Little did I know that gardenia comes in a variety of species and the ones that I bought and shown here are Gardenia Augusta....sweet yet powerful fragrant flower.

This is how it looked like on the first day of bloom. Thick white petals and looks like a rose at first glance.



At full bloom...resembles a white rose except for the stigma inside.

 Leaves are glossy and evergreen.

The amazing development as it matures, on third day of bloom, it turns yellow! Not just any yellow..thick bright and bold yellow with a waxy texture feeling.

Fragrance becomes more intense as it matures on. At this stage, red ants are all over the bloom, probably sucking on its sweet nectar.

When I brought this plant home from the nursery, it has plenty of buds awaiting to bloom. After a few days, some of the buds did bloom whereas many others just fall to the ground without blooming. My heart 'fell' too. Oh dear..what happened, I was wondering. Definitely its the pests, as gardenia are prone to redmites, spidermites and white flies. And I only knew about this after purchasing the plant. This is the mistake I always make. Should have researched about the plant before buying them. But then again, if my heart are set on it I just gotta have it, no matter what they say. Are you like me?

When I spoke to the owner of the nursery about this problem, she recommended me "Albarol" to spray on all my plants. According to her, this spray works for condo-garden as it is an oily based pesticides which works best on white flies. Seems that white flies loves condo garden!!!! She received many feedbacks from her customers who are mostly living in condos.

I also observed that the sun is not on my side these days. Very little sun everyday. This is the limitations of having a garden in a condo. You never know when and for how long the sun will shine on your side. But I was informed that gardenia can survive under shade.