Sourcing and Cultivation Methods for Gardenia Bonsai

  The gardenia has bright green leaves, stays evergreen all year round, bears large pure white flowers, and is richly fragrant. It also has a certain tolerance for shade and resistance to toxic gases, so it is an excellent material for greening, beautifying and scenting a space. It can be planted in massed clumps or placed at the edge of a wood, in front of a courtyard, in a courtyard corner, or beside a path, and it is also very suitable for growing as a flowering hedge. It is very well suited to balcony greening, potted flowers, cut flowers or bonsai, and can also be used for greening streets and factories and mines. For making gardenia bonsai, the material is mainly obtained by the following methods.

  Artificial propagation:

  Mainly by cuttings, though layering, division or seed propagation can also be used.

  (2) Layering: mostly done in May-June. Choose vigorous 1-2 year old gardenia branches, 25-30 cm long, and layer them into the same pot or another pot, burying them 2-3 cm deep. They root in about 1 month, and after 2 months are cut away from the mother plant and transplanted into another flower pot.

  (3) Air layering: on a mature gardenia, choose 2-3 year old branches and make a ring-bark cut for air layering. In about 4-5 days fibrous roots can form; then cut the layer away from the mother plant at its lower end, plant it in a pot with its soil ball, place it in a cool spot to recover, and it becomes a new plant.

  (4) Division: in May, when 2-3 branches of the gardenia grow together at the base of the roots, cut them apart at the root with a knife, making sure each division has fine roots, then plant them separately in other pots. Place them in a cool spot and avoid watering with fertilizer; once new shoots appear, they can be placed in sunlight and managed with fertilizer and water.

  In the south, a water-cutting method is used: take current-year softwood shoots 12-15 cm long, soak them in clear water for 12 [hours], change the water once a day, and keep them in half shade; in about 20 days they can produce new roots.

  Collecting from the wild:

  Gardenia and 'Cock's Tongue' gardenia grow wild in many mountainous areas south of the Yangtze River basin. You can select and dig up those with thick, strong rhizomes and small stature, transplant them into pots with the soil, and make them into beautiful flowering bonsai.