Gardenias are acid lovers, so maybe they needed more acid. I am trying coffee grounds for the acid and for the bugs now. Mine seems to be looking better. Peat would be a good top dressing to add some acid to yours as well as using pine bark mulch. I am trying coffee ground for everything now even my hibiscus. lol

"Once the beans die, how should I try to keep it happy?"
Plant more beans!
Maybe it was lacking nitrogen. Or maybe you are watering the beans more and the gardenia likes it?

I garden like you do, vegetables, flowers, fruits and bushes mixed here and there around the yard.

My Gardenia always had ants climbing all over it and also had black sooty mold until I started throwing coffee grounds under it and watering it with diluted leftover morning coffee. It is looking healthy, growing beautifully and the ants are leaving it alone. I've also mulched it with pine needles. Starbucks is a great source for coffee grounds, they hand me a bag as soon as I walk in!

Regina

Don't forget you can also use pickle juice for your gardenia. Just make sure you water it in or you'll get critters digging up plant.

My Dunkin Donuts gives the used coffee grounds to me.

do the coffe grounds keep the ants away? I knew that the gardenia liked acid . Great idea Mine is ant covered and sooty too.Can't wait to try it.

I've been using our coffee grounds under our gardenia. The bonus is my husband thinks I'm becoming more domestic.

barbcoleus,

I am laffing myself off the chair! "The bonus is my husband thinks I'm becoming more domestic."

Kim

I planted beans near a gardenia that was not doing well and
today I notice the gardenia is looking much better. I did not make a connection,then. Thanks for posting this. It encourages me to plant more beans in my flower beds. As you see,there are
others that enjoy mixing flowers with edibles. I also have been planting herbs in the flower beds for added texture and scent.
Felix

I've been doing the coffee grounds for awhile, and that helped, but not enough to make me think I could actually save the gardenia.

Felix, the beans really seemed to make a huge difference! I'm wondering what other plants need some green bean vines? Would it help my suffering plumeria? That would be in a sunnier spot so I might actually get more beans (15-foot plumeria not throwing shade at all at this point, just dropped a bunch of leaves, poor thing). Wonder if it would help the free-tree-day desert casia that's not doing much? Or the lignum vitae that I got at Fairchild that's also not doing much?

And hey, for the eight or ten beans I've gotten off of those two vines on the gardenia, and the fact that I'm no longer wondering what I should do for my &^%$&! gardenia _ a seed packet is worth the cost. Makes me think I actually might have more space for beans than I realized. I might have actually been protecting some of my suffering plants from a needed dose of green beans!

That is so interesting. It's sure worth a try. I have some Indian hawthorne and some hollies that could use some perking up. I think I'll try some by the plumeria also.

This post got me thinking. My dad always used to plant an early crop of rye to disc into the muck (soil) to improve it before planting the main crops. Now farmers are using "living mulches" like legumes and alfalfa to reduce dependency on fertilizers and pesticides.

Besides the nitrogen previously mentioned, beans provide potassium and phosperous and some varieties can evidently, get this, combat nematodes!

Unlike Tropicals or Felix, it never dawned on me to plant peas or beans in my flower beds. I can't think of a single flower, plant, tree or vine that couldn't benefit. (Envisioning bean land in my front, back and side yards.)

Imatallun,

That's actually why most of my bean and pea crop is fighting it out with the weeds in the veggie garden. I knew I wouldn't have the stamina to actually tend the garden much in this weather. But I figured they would help the next crop of tomatoes and peppers and such. Then I ordered too many seed packets, of course, so I started planting them all over the place. Funny how gardening mistakes sometimes turn out well. I'll figure out how to domesticate wheat any day now. :)

Dear Natives,

(Sorry, I referred to you as Tropicals before), I laughed out loud when I read about how the bean adventure started. I'm glad that your gardening mistakes turn out well. Mine end up, well, sort of nightmarish.

Beans and peas should be safe though. No snaking roots, non-invasive, won't grow too big for the spot we planted them in. They'll feed our soil and our plants and as a bonus, feed us. Way to go!

Is your gardenia still looking proud? I can't imagine this is that happy time of year for them. (Had one in Tallahasse, haven't tried one here - yet.)

Thanks for your marvelous post, and please keep me me up to date on your future mistakes, so I can copy them.

Imatallun,

The gardenia is still looking great. Best it's looked since I got it and it immediately started "growing" smaller. I actually trimmed some leaves off the bean today to make sure it doesn't shade the gardenia too much, the way a vine can. I'll pull the beans at some point. You're right, their roots are shallow.

But now I really am thinking about trying to find some beans to plant around the suffering plumeria. And in another area of the yard that has very poor soil. I'm not sure why the soil is so poor there, but all the plants I've put there have insisted it's bad.

For two winters, I've planted nasturtium there, because they like poor soil, I like them (to eat and look at) and I figured that anything that puts roots down would be a decent cover-crop. My grandparents were farmers in Florida and were pretty adamant that you should keep something planted always in any area you wanted to farm. They struggled with sandy soil and erosion problems, but taught me about cover crops and how they can improve things. I was hoping my nasturtium, aerating soil and pushing through sand and rock, and then being plowed back down into the dirt at the end of the season might help. So far, that hasn't done much for the poor soil area, however.

Bet it needed beans.

Susannah

Hi Susannah,

Its wonderful that you follow advice from your grandparents with cover crops and soil improvement. (Sticking with your roots, right?) I'm honestly tickled pink about your post because it is making me rethink my gardening practices. You gave me a "whaa laa" moment, and I thank you for that.

Do you compost? I just started undeground composting recently, because I found an amazing about of earthworms under a Powder Puff tree that has evidently been shedding leaves for decades. (Never wanted to take up above ground composting because of the annual vermin event that occurs when cold weather hits. Call me crazy.) I was just thinking how lovely those bean vines would be for compost.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by planting beans in that bad soil area, under your ornamentals or anywhere else, right? Nasturiums and beans could become your nasti-bean patch, nice for the eye and your dinner.

(Now envisioning bean, pea and nasturium in the front, back and side yards.) Thanks for posting back,

Marilyn