Ground Work

If I had to try to single out a favourite scented flower, Gardenias would be very up there on my list. I love to pick the flowers and put them in my hair, the heat from my head intensifies the perfume and I get to have the smell linger around me all day. That was one of the things I learnt in floristry, when making a floral head piece, dont choose delicate flowers as the head produces alot of heat and delicate flowers will wilt very quickly.

Gardenias are surprisingly easy plants to grow, but they have a very bad habit of looking yellow and sick because most people dont do their prep work first. Its easy, enrich the ground with some cow manure (its slightly more acidic than sheep manure, but only slightly) or compost. They dont like to grow in dry sandy soils, so enrich it I tells ya! They yellow very easily when water stressed, so mulch the plant and apply a wetting agent if the soil is water repellent.  They dont like being in full shade (they wont flower and will grow very sparse and leggy), they dont like very hot sun. They will grow quite happily in part/dappled shade and full sun. Simple. Oh and, they also also like slightly acidic soil, same as camellias and azaleas. An easy way to kill two birds with one stone is to mulch them with pine needles. Pine trees are notoriously bad for the soil, they suck out so much moisture and acidify the soil really badly. This is why I like reading books as opposed to ereaders, kindles or whatever else theyre called, I like pine trees to die for my reading pleasures. But I digress, pine needles break down into the soil,  keep the moisture in and slightly acidify the soil as they break down. Finally a use for pine. I realise this sounds like alot of work but if you do your research right, then growing gardenias can be very rewarding. They flower profusely when happy and the smell from them is absolutely divine.