We have two gardenia bushes at the front of our house and they flowered well in the summer of 2013.
They are Kleim's Hardy Gardenias, but not hardy enough for the winter we had last year.
It is fragrant, and I loved looking out my office window and seeing them.
This summer, the summer of 2014 they did not blossom, in fact last winter was so cold for such a lengthy period that both bushes appeared to be dead when spring and summer rolled around, and after speaking with the garden center we frequent, they too said the bushes were most likely dead.
I was heart broken and decided they needed to come out and be replaced, but my husband took a 'wait and see' attitude and they did FINALLY get green buds, but they were so busy healing this year that there were no flowers or large leaves.
Since the bushes had taken such a hard hit last year we decided that this winter they should be covered so that hopefully next summer they will be in full bloom once again.
My husband built very large cages which I assisted him with yesterday,
and we placed them over the gardenia bushes in hopes of keeping the VERY hard and EXTREMELY COLD temperatures with frost away from them.
The pups played next to us as we installed them and my husband staked the cages into the ground.
They look like mini grain silos in the front yard.
Hoping for many gardenia blossoms next summer.
It's no wonder we never leave home.... always so busy around here.
Gardenias all up here were killed last winter. Good to hear that yours are recovering. I bought a new kind on clearance at Lowes last month, Pinwheel. It has pretty single flowers and is supposedly hardier than most any other kind. I guess we will see how they fare come springtime.
ReplyDeleteQuite the little dome like structures you built for the bushes!
ReplyDeleteI hope theGardenias do well and they bloom like crazy!
Oh, that is a great idea. We are covering our boxwoods this year. I have a rain chain that dripped ice on them all last winter and they were burned badly. I have some burlap to protect them from the ice...poor things.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE gardenias. They are my favorite flowers to smell. Can I come over and stick my nose in them when they are blooming next summer?