Mine never need to get cold or cool to bloom... All I have to do is feed them during growing season and leave them put, in the greenhouse or a room in which gets dark naturally with daylight and they all bloom.. In fact, I try not to expose most of mine to cold since I want the true bright colors I bought them for..If left to get cold, like below the 60's, all of mine will not bloom to true color.. Mike

Background: I bought a very small Valencia Orange from Stark Brothers two years ago (along with an order of fruit trees). First year was strickly indoors, not the greatest growth. This last summer I moved it outside. I purchased a lemon and a lime from Home Depot during a trip to CA (they had Four Winds tags on them) and brought them back to Utah. Care: They seemed to be doing okay, and I fertilized all with a citrus fertilizer when I got home in August. I moved the orange to a larger pot at about this time, using a pot I had similar in size to the ones from HD/Four Winds, but the orange isn't nearly as large, but lots more leaves. When I moved them into a sheltered area (no direct sun) to prepare them for winter, the lemon lost all of its leaves - may have also been a lack of watering issue as well. At any rate, I moved them to the garage next to a north-facing window and the lemon produced all new leaves. A few weeks later, the lemon and orange produced quite a few blossoms. Of course, the blossoms quickly dropped, but the orange has continued to blossom with one or two here and there after I moved it near a second floor south facing window. Analysis: I thought the blossoms came because of the changes in settings (cool/cold to warm) as if it was going into spring? At any rate, it was my first use of a citrus fertilizer and the first time that the orange had blossomed in the two years I've had it.

Hi Toni I'm sorry to hear about the bad news on flooded basements and about your lost in the basement. I hope everything gets better soon for everyone and that everyone gets their electric back soon. I will say a prayer so that god helps everyone and things get better soon I'm just looking for a book that has info on gardenias as well as other plants like roses, palm trees and basil. Toni: how do you take care of your gardenias? I see that your gardenias look good. I want to know what care do you give them to see if It helps me with this gardenia thats giving me a headace May be you can spray the garden safe 3 and 1 fungicide it controls spiders and mites. LOL about the rabbit. may be it's a cat that might be eatting the leaves of your plant. all my gardenias expect one is doing great. I have 7 gardenias one is in between and the other 6 are doing great. I do have a rose that looks sick. can you give me some advice on how to take care of rose plants please? I think you still could feed your gardenia until november. I water the gardenias with de-still water since I have hard tap water and I hear that is bad for them and makes their leaves go yellow. Take Care Richie

Thanks Jen! Yeah, the mealey battle has been a full scale war this winter. I had one plant (a veitchii gardenia) that I found last spring that had mealies and I had isolated it and worked on it all last year and through the winter (it is finally clear). But by golly it spread like wildfire in here - hoyas, stephanotis, passifloras, oleander, coffee arabica. They completely took down my regular carnosa last summer and all I could do was cut a clean piece off, root it in water, and pot it up. The rest of the plant was tossed as the vines progessively died due to the stress. The cutting is doing well so far. The only things they didn't touch in the immediate area were my overwintering habanero pepper plants and my rose-scented geranium. That's interesting to consider. LOL I got the stems all sprayed on the compacta and I put it outside to isolate and will continue the treatments every couple days. Look forward to seeing it bloom again! Now to attack the lacunosa, which has been blooming on and off all winter but that got the mealies first. The lacunosa has such fragile leaves compared to the carnosas that I wanted to be extra careful with it. Plus it has tons and tons of bloom pedicels all over it that I don't want to knock off. Then I have to tackle the incurvula, which doesn't seem to have it that bad. In fact, I might do that one next and leave the lacunosa for last. Here are the bloom remains from the compacta!