Gardenia, Cape Jasmine, Gandharaj 'Summer Snow'

Bought it from France ( [...Read More5_litres" target="_dgnew"rel="nofollow">HYPERLINK@www.achat-vente-palmiers.com] ). It was under 3 plies of fleece, winter was rather mild - only few days of -5C (23F) at night in the end of Feb and one time plunge to -11C (12)F on 1 March in the early morning when the skies cleared. The plant was killed to the ground.Now it the end of May there are few buds at the base but it is way too slow regrowing. Now in the end of September it has not grown more than a hand s span. This plant s hardiness is rather exaggerated or refers only to older well established plants with thicker stems. One advantage is it seems to have moderate drought and heat tolerance in dappled shade.

I am obsessed with fragrant plants. My newest desire is to plant a "Summer Snow" gardenia in a protected spot in my debatable zone... Ma...Read Morerblehead, Ma is zone 6-7 per Arborday.com But, as I am from Syracuse ... I tend to think it is more of a solid zone 6. My biggest challenge is finding someone to sell me this gardenia in a large enough size so I can enjoy it. So far, the local nurseries only sell annual gardenias. Please help me find one to buy!

stays green, no damage in my oak ridge, tn (upper zone 7/or 6b) i love this plant. beautiful, i have barely cared for it at all,and it th...Read Morerives. i have pine bark mulch, my soil is hard clay, but very rich in nutrients, i only water if there is no rain that week. it is thriving well.
UPDATE!! 6/12/2017
when i originally planted this it was just small seedlings, about 5 inches tall from forest farms online seller. i got the tube size. i planted it may 2015, of course too young to have any blooms. as my original review says it survived wonderfully without damage for winter 2016. then spring and summer 2016 it grew about 4 feet high, but i never got any blooms or buds. then it survived 2016 winter.... we are currently spring 2017, and i have beautiful wonderful smelling blooms. i posted pictures here in the picture section, they are huge blooms, i put a size reference of a dollar bill in the picture so you can see. they are thriving so beautifully. they are like my gardenias i grew in florida!!! i have about 50 more buds yet to bloom between the 3 plants i have. they have lush green foliage, tall and full...
as a side note, the grif's select gardenia, and the frostproof are awful gardenias, i have them as well and i hate them.
but these summer snow, if you live up in zone 7a, they should do fine for you. i do not cover them or spray them at winter time, i do not baby them or do anything special. if it rains once a week, then i leave them alone, if it doesnt, i water them once a week for about 30 seconds per plant.
if the leaves start to yellow, i sprinkle a little ironite at the drip edge, maybe a tablespoon spread around each plant, and i've only done that once per year, about mid spring.
i did not use special soil except the cheap stuff from lowes/home depot that is topsoil.
after 10-15 years caring for gardenias, i will say, they dont like to be meddled with.
i read a lot of forums, and the well known suicidal gardenia thread, and i think gosh, leave the plants alone!!!
they love iron (i had iron in my water in florida really bad where it stained my clothes), and i have clay soil here in tennessee which is also high in iron...
do not flood them with water, but dont let them go more than a week with no water if it is spring and summer time with 90degree weather either. if it is cool out, then i really dont worry about the watering at all.
i do not water them in winter at all. the foliage stays on and stays green all year here in 7a tennessee, even through snow and teens weather.
if the leaves yellow, they probably need a sprinkling of ironite. check for bugs. i havent had any bugs on them here in tennessee except spiders or bees or ladybugs or what have you, but i did have bugs in florida, i forget what kind they were, but i remember the store told me to hose them with melathion.. yes it is a poison, but it killed the bugs that were causing decline to my gardenias, and i only ever had to do that once. bees, spiders ladybugs, etc, dont do harm to your gardenias, so leave them alone, but sometimes you will see certain bugs doing harm, i wish i could remember what i had on them that time in florida, but i really cant remember, but melathion took care of it.
other than that, honestly, gardenias are really carefree. dont disturb their soil. dont scratch stuff in it, dont dig around them, dont smother the base with mulch.
i do have mulch but it is only an inch tall. dont mound soil up around them, they like to be level to the ground, not buried deep. you can even plant them a bit above soil, but i never do. i dont want the roots to be blasted with hot sun and dry them out, so i always just plant them ground level.then cover with an inch of mulch.
every year, you will get a showering of yellow leaves. this is not new leaves turning yellow, this is old green leaves dying off as the new green leaves emerge. i do pluck the yellow leaves off once the green is completely gone. (dont pluck them early, they are still collecting chlorophyll).
the way to tellt the difference of needing ironite or not for the yellow leaves is, are all the leaves turning yellow? or are all the leaves deep dark green, and a few leaves that are yellow? if all the leaves except a few are dark green, do not add anything to it. it is fine. if however, the majority of the leaves are turning yellow, it needs a sprinkling of ironite, it is deficient. only do it once. give it a week or 2, they will green right back up.
UPDATE APRIL 2018
it got down to zero one night, and also stayed about 10 degrees for a week, and all the leaves turned brown! :( i believe they are all still alive though, but its too soon to tell because it's just now warming up where i live and we seem to have had a longer winter this year so i will have to update again if they died over this winter. i will come back and update in a month or 2 if they are still alive or if they all died, and also, whether or not they put out flowers or if the rigid cold winter prevented that.
UPDATE 5/31/2020
My shrubs all made it, i didnt realize i never came back to update this. If it gets below 20 degrees i stick a garbage can upside down and place on top of them to protect it from the blistering wind and cold. Im in 7a and that only happens a few days out of each winter. My shrubs are now about 3 feet wide and 6 feet tall and are doing wonderfully. Now that the stems are so much thicker, i think im out of the danger zone of them dying back but still on those really cold nights i do cover them with the garbage can.( The really big ones that you use outside for all your garbage ) and i get zero damage and zero dieback. Probably looks rather silly but for a few days each winter im ok with that. Highly recommend this if you're zone 7a. I do not recommend if you are in 6b or below unless you plan to keep it covered on all your below 20 degree days, but i think that would be quite often and too much trouble. If you dont mind doing that, then theyd probably do fine in zone 6a even, as long as you're willing to go out and cover them on all those days theyll make it.

UPDATE 10/2023:

All my shrubs are still doing great and are still 5-6 feet tall. They might have gotten taller but I grow them as hedges along the walkway to my front door so I don't want them any taller than that. I do keep 2 inches of wood mulch in my shrub beds and I also planted butterfly bushes on the other side of my walkway and so the butterfly bushes serve as a windblock even though the butterfly bushes lose their leaves, the branches and fullness of the butterfly bushes block the wind perfectly, and the gardenias are truly thriving. The gardenia stems are about the width of a sharpie now and the shrubs are really thick and full and not leggy or sparse at all. I couldn't be happier with them. I'm thankful I took the chance.

I bought this plant online and planted it in April here in NE Florida to replace an Olenader that got killed by an unusual cold spell thi...Read Mores past winter. So far it has done well and has actually bloomed with fragrant, pure white flowers with little care but watering it once or twice a week at most.