Use These 3 Tricks for Gardenias and You'll Get Buds as Thick as Fingers and Flowers as Big as Your Palm

The subtle fragrance of gardenia always gives people a sense of closeness, the green leaves give a refreshing feeling in summer, and the white, plump flower buds give an even more elegant feeling. Would you believe it? This elegant fairy among flowers blooms bigger than a palm, with buds as thick as a finger, and every pot bursting with blooms, all achieved with just these 3 tricks.

Trick One

Plenty of Nutrients

No matter what kind of plant it is, you must supply enough nutrients when caring for it, with nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in fairly balanced and rich amounts. You can add 3% decomposed cake fertilizer to the growing medium as a base fertilizer. During the growing season, water once a week with alum fertilizer water made by fermenting cake fertilizer plus ferrous sulfate; during the bud stage, water 1 to 2 times with a 0.1% potassium dihydrogen phosphate aqueous solution; stop fertilizing during the hottest summer period when temperatures are above 35°C and in autumn when temperatures are below 15°C.

For gardening friends who find it troublesome and also like to keep things clean, it is better to use a ready-made organic liquid fertilizer to maintain fertility, diluted directly with water at 500 times, used once a week, which can promote vigorous plant growth, more buds and bigger flowers.

Trick Two

Gardenia is a typical acid-loving plant, so when choosing soil you should keep the pH value between 4.0-6.5 to create a slightly acidic environment for the plant. In addition, the soil must be loose and fertile with good air permeability, so that the gardenia can breathe freely.

For gardening friends who like to tinker on their own, you can make your own leaf mold. Go to the mountains and collect some pine needles; after drying them in the sun, use a bucket or a large vat, put in a layer of soil, then a layer of pine needles, layer by layer like a sandwich, filling it to 2/3 of the bucket, then add an appropriate amount of water just to moisten the soil, then cover it tightly and seal it. Let it ferment for about 3 months; it is best to put it in a place with strong sunlight, where fermentation is faster.

Soil fermented this way is fairly loose, breathable, and drains relatively well, and is rich in nutrients, which can promote gardenia rooting, strong buds, more flowers and bigger buds.

Trick Three

During the growth of gardenia, branches easily overlap, which can easily lead to poor ventilation and scattered nutrients, and is not good for the healthy growth of the gardenia, so prune away part of the branches according to real-time needs.

After that, every year after the gardenia has finished blooming, you can do a light pruning, cutting off the weak and diseased branches and leaves, which helps the gardenia absorb sufficient nutrients and at the same time allows more branches to sprout. Through pruning and shaping, you can grow a gardenia that bursts with blooms.