I love the way they smell

So jealous! Wish one could smell through the screen.

I used to have a bush, and I would pick one every day and put it in a bowl of water in the house. It made the whole house smell good!

What kind of light are you growing them in?

Mine is on the north side of the house so no direct sunlight except when the sun is directly overhead. My bush is a grafted one planted in the late 1990s. Last year i fronted it by trimming it back as it was grow too far into the side path of the house. After it blooms this year i will trim the top down as it is getting too tall and i don't want it to hit the eaves. When it was first planted it was also in the shade of an oak but my father chopped the tree down sometime in the 2000s.

It seems that hurricane idea decided to split mine right at the graft....so the graft seems to be growing on its own in the middle of the tree impeeding much if any of the gardenia itself . Wondering if I should trim it back @the graft? Used to be full, healthy & throwing many beautiful fragrant blooms.....pretty sad looking now.

The gardenia hedge at Florida Botanical gardens in Largo is absolutely loaded with blooms. The branches droop from the weight of the flowers. I think it's the 'Miami supreme' variety

Hmm I think I'm going to have to move mine. Thankfully it's in a container and I'd only have to move a few feet. Spot I had it now has full sun most of the day... new place so still learning the sun's path. Still newish to gardening in Florida, this would be my third summer; surprises me how intense sun is here.

The rain ended my blooms...the last flowers would start to open and then get beaten by the rain. I'll wait a bit to make sure no late blooms and them trim the top two feet or so. Next year it should be bushier for doing so.

daviddearest, gardenias are sometimes grafted onto cherry laurel or wild cherry rootstock, since there is no gardenia rootstock that is nematode resistant, but that's not a hard and fast rule. They can also be grafted onto Crepe Jasmine, a very large growing bush that is not a gardenia, but has gardenia like flowers that smell wonderfu, and that can be grown in the ground. If the leaves that come out below the graft are gardenia leaves, that's what they're grafted onto. If they are not, it's grafted onto something else, and yes, cut away the growth. If you want a crape jasmine, let the growth from the rootstock grow about 6 inches, then cut it off and root it. It roots quite easily in soil or water. Just be sure to put it somewhere where it can grow to its heart's content, because they can get 10 feet tall.

I thought that gardenia cultivars were typically grafted onto Gardenia thunbergia, an African species. Also I thought Gardenia thunbergia was nematode resistant.

Here in St. Pete, there's an old specimen of what I am confident is a Gardenia thungerbia behind a recently constructed parking lot. It has a trunk about 10 inches or more in diameter with no sign of any graft union and it has a very tall and wide spreading canopy.

The tree fascinated me and I tried to identify it for months on end until one day to my complete surprise it began to bloom with these long throated flowers that were quite obviously gardenia blooms.

They were very large, thick petaled waxy fragrant nodding flowers. And it just continued to bloom for months on end starting in late winter. Last I checked it still had some blooms on it. My guess has since been that it must have once been the rootstock of a gardenia bush.

Claudio Claudio,

Has been growing beautifully in a southern location is obviously enough shade from a large oak tree on the other side of the driveway to give it just enough shelter from the intensity of full Florida sun & allow it to (before Hurricane Irma) bloom her heart out.