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austinwildflower

gardenia not dead but dead leaves - what to do?

austinwildflower
14 years ago

Just reading through some of the posts the last couple months, I can see I'm not alone in losing things like oleander, bougainvillea, etc. Some of those borderline plants took a serious hit. I'm waiting to cut them all back because there is still green in their stems and I learned a hard lesson last year from pruning borderline plants before a frost. (I lost a Barbados cherry by hard pruning it, then the late-March frost killed the tender growth.... lesson learned!)

Anyway, this is about a gardenia, which I have in a pot, and which is still alive. I forgot to move it inside during one of the nights we got a serious freeze and most of its leaves are completely brown and drooping off the plant. I have to pull very hard to get them off, so I am wondering what to do to clean it up--should I prune it? And how? That means I might not get flowers this spring. Hmmm. And when do you all prune your gardenias? Any advice is welcome... this is only my second year with this plant. It was beautiful last year, even through the drought. It loves rainwater and every bit that I saved last year went into the gardenia pot ;)

Oh, and it is a Gardenia 'veitchii' if that is important. I don't know much about gardenias other than that my soil is not acidic enough--that's why it's potted.

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