Thanks Mike, I have the gardenia in the 511 mix now so it’s off to a better start. I swear I remember reading a thread where lot of people where saying they left their gardenia in a dark cool basement and didn’t take it out until spring. My own great aunt had a gardenia bush that I swear was was 8ft x 8ft and she had it in a dimly lit cellar until spring. She lived in West Virginia so no tropics there! LOL I was hoping that one or two of the following would be sufficent to keep it alive, that is if it survives my lastest forary into gardenia hell .

You will be better off with regular 100W equivalent daylight led bulbs. Use 2 of them and keep them fairly close like 6-8 inches from the plant. Run them 12 hrs a day on a timer. You can run them upto 16 hrs and it may respond better. Next summer when you bring them outside slowly acclimatize to outdoor Sun over a period of 2 weeks.

T-8 flourescents are better when you have several low height plants. Since you have just one tall plant I suggested two bulbs pointing at the plant canopy. Aim the bulbs from the side at an angle towards the plant.

Both the gardenia and the rosemary will survive winter outdoors perfectly well in zone 7 and the plants themselves would be much happier. If you wish to keep them in containers, just sink the containers into the ground in a protected location. Then you can lift them in spring and move to wherever.

ToC, thank you! I found two types at HD, CFL Twister type and LED...Which do you think is better?

Gardengal - I am totally afraid of doing that! 7a is quite borderline for the gardenia I would like to get it super healthy and alive for at least one winter indoors before I risk outdoors! Rosemary, yes, but I like having some green indoors. I just need to figure out a way to keep the powdery mildew away!

Either will do. CFL runs a little hotter and consumes more energy vs led. CFL has bit of UV light which is also helpful for plants but in low quantities and CFL serves the purpose. I tend to use more LEDs since I have lots of plants and running 12 hrs a day adds up towards energy bill. The heat from the CFL could also be an advantage if the room is on the cooler side. I say go with the CFLs since you just need two of them.

regular Gardenia is rated at zone 8-11 looking at several sites. There are few special ones that are said to be OK for zone 7. Mine is a dwarf variety (radicans) and minimum is zone 8. I have a small cutting that I may try to keep in my shed where I store my bonsai plants for the winter.

Hardy gardenias, Gardenia jasminoides, are routinely rated to zone 7 and even few to zone 6 - Frostproof, Kleim's Hardy, Chuck Hayes, Pinwheel, etc.

Perfect, I will go with the CFLs. I am pretty sure this gardenia is a veitchii which is rated hardiness zone 8-11 as well. Not going to risk it just yet :) :)

I'm in Olympia, WA (pretty far north, check the latitude, but still in mild zone 8a) and have 2 'Crown Jewel' hardy gardenias, planted in a warm sunny spot. They surprisingly survived through the winter just fine without losing any leaves. The leaves turned yellow, but later fully greened up again later in the year. It was a colder winter than usual, and much more snow this winter than normal, they were completely buried in snow. They haven't seemed to grow much, but look healthy and appeared to have no problem surviving the winter.

'Crown Jewel' is hybrid between Kleim's Hardy and Chuck Hayes.

I also have a 'Summer Snow' in a spot that was in almost total shade during the winter (due to angle of the sun) so that spot probably wasn't as warm. It was killed back but survived. But it's still a small plant and might do better next year.