Monday 3 September 2012

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.

10 comments:

  1. Haha, this gardenia is better than a rose as roses don't change colour like this. The fragrance is very nice, yeah? I have 3 gardenia plants but they have not flowered for some time. Two have variegated leaves.

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  2. Seriously Ms Belle, I have no idea at all it will change color. I was so shocked at first to see it but the yellow was very nice..my heart melted, hehehe. The fragrance is quite strong but nice.
    Now variegated leaves is something that I've not seen at all.

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  3. Hello Ash, nice to meet you :) What a magical flower that changes colours so dramatically! I look forward to following your gardening journey.

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  4. Hello Rosemary,
    Welcome to my garden! So nice to see you here :)
    We will be 'seeing' lots of each other from now.
    You have a lovely cat!

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    1. I look forward to visiting you as well! My cat's name is Sushi and he is quite loveable :)

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    2. Sushi..what a lovely name and she is Siamese right?
      I'm a cat lover myself :)

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  5. So beautiful flowers! The fragrant flowers are popular indoor plants here in Norway.
    Thanks for sharing

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  6. Welcome..welcome!
    So glad you made it here :)
    Thanks for the comment, what a beauty to be living oceans away yet see the same flowers in our home!

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  7. I've not seen a gardenia which turns yellow, very beautiful. I also love their fragrance.

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  8. Can you believe it that I didn't know about it either until it changed color right in front of my face!
    This is God's creation, beautifully packaged and delivered :)

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Thanks for your lovely words...