Home » Misc » How to prune a gardenia bush

How to prune a gardenia bush


How to Prune a Gardenia Bush in 5 Simple Steps

A gardenia bush should be pruned with proper techniques and at the right time to prevent any kind of damage to the plant health. Read this article to know how to prune a gardenia bush.

Gardenia bush is well-known for its shiny, dark green foliage and beautiful white flowers with exquisite fragrance. Growing gardenia is a pretty simple task. It can be grown outdoors as well as indoors. It grows well in a warm climate. Therefore, in those areas where the winter is intolerable, this ornamental shrub is grown indoors in containers as a houseplant. It should be planted in a rich, well-drained soil and placed in one such location where it receives the morning sun. Pruning gardenia is a part of the plant care. However, it does not require pruning to keep the plant healthy. Rather, it is pruned for aesthetic reasons.

Two of the most important aspects of gardenia care are the timing of the pruning and the tools to be used for the job. The main steps on how to prune a gardenia bush are as follows:

Step #1

Selection of the right pruning time for gardenia bush is very important. It should be done only after its blooming season is over, but before the new buds of the next season make their appearances. Pruning is avoided during blooming period as it causes significant damage to the existing blossoms. On the other hand, it should be pruned prior to the onset of fall when the new buds appear. Pruning in fall season can badly ruin blossoms of the new season. Therefore, the ideal time for pruning the bush is late summer or early fall.

Step #2

You can prune gardenia bushes with small hand pruners. Always use sharp pruning shears for this job to ensure an even cut. Uneven cuts can make the plant prone to diseases. Bypass pruners are mostly recommended for pruning gardenia bush as it works like a pair of scissors. Thus, it gives clean cuts that can heal fast, which reduces the chances of any future problems in the plant after pruning.

Step #3

First of all, you have to eliminate all the damaged and diseased parts of the plant. Pinch out all the dead or wilted blooms from the plant. If any of the branches show signs of disease or fungal infestation, then cut them out from the base. While pruning, keep the pruner at a 45 degree angle. After pruning the diseased parts of the plant, you must wipe off the shears with a disinfected rag or else the disease may spread to other branches that come in contact with it. You may come across some stems that do not have any growth. Those are probably dead stems and you must cut them out.

Step #4

Make a thorough inspection of the shrub from all sides and angles to identify the locations of the stems and leaves that are protruding out. Pruning is done to eliminate these extra shoots that keep growing from all directions in order to give a more fuller look to the shrub. You should trim the branches that are growing laterally as they can ruin the shape of the bush later on. You can also give a desired shape and size to the foliage. For this, you have to prune several inches along the edges of the plant. Maximum pruning should be done at the topmost part of the plant. This will improve air circulation through the foliage and promote growth of new shoots.

Step #5

While pruning gardenia, you must keep one thing in mind that you cannot prune more than one-third of the plant. Once you finish pruning, all trash materials should be disposed off immediately. Otherwise, the pests from the diseased branches may attack the bush all over again. Do not water the plant for the next few hours after pruning.

Usually, a gardenia bush does not have vigorous growth. So, you can prune it after a gap of two years, although most people prefer to prune it once a year to maintain an attractive shape.

Like it? Share it!

General Gardening

Get Updates Right to Your Inbox

Sign up to receive the latest and greatest articles from our site automatically each week (give or take). ..right to your inbox.

Blog Updates

Email Address *

When to prune gardenias |

(Image credit: Richard Patterson/Alamy Stock Photo)

Wondering when to prune gardenias to keep these plants the right size for your backyard, and shapely, too? While very little pruning of these prized shrubs is necessary, it is definitely a task worth adding to a gardening to-do list for a handsome feature plant, and it’s important to get the timing right.

On the desirable evergreen shrubs list for many gardeners in the south – as well as that of those located in colder zones who are prepared to move their plants indoors in winter – gardenias are adored for their showy, fragrant blooms and attractive foliage.

But to help them look their best, pruning is a good idea, and this is the lowdown on when to prune gardenias.

When to prune gardenias

Gardenias are one of the best flowering shrubs for busy gardeners because they don’t have to be pruned much. But pruning will keep them in shape, and will allow the removal of broken stems.  

If you’ve chosen gardenias to plant with hydrangeas, or have a smaller yard, and therefore want to keep them more compact, prune gardenias every year. But if letting them grow bigger works within the garden design, pruning every two or even every three years can be sufficient to keep them to the dimensions and shape you want.

What time of year to prune gardenias

While when to prune gardenias can vary from annually to two or even three yearly, the rules are stricter when it comes to the time of year to prune them. Get it wrong and fewer flowers can be the result.

‘For trees and shrubs that are grown for their flowers, you must consider when they bloom before you decide to prune them,’ say Daniel Gill and Thomas A Merrill at LSU Ag Center . 

Be aware that gardenias may bloom just once a year, or more than once, so you should be sure about the variety in order to know when to prune. 

Prune gardenias after flowering

Gardenias should be pruned right after the last flower has bloomed. ‘Gardenias, like azaleas, would need to be pruned after they have finished flowering, which will be sometime late spring or early summer,’ say the experts at UF/IFAS Extension Nassau County .

Pruning a gardenia at this time of year avoids the risk of cutting away new buds, which could happen if you prune in the fall.

The timing is driven by the fact that new buds develop on older wood. Gardenias ‘bloom in early summer, but they produced their flower buds from last year’s growth’, explain Daniel Gill and Thomas A Merrill.

For gardenias that bloom more than once, wait until the end of the final blooming cycle to prune.

Can I prune gardenias in winter?

You shouldn’t prune gardenias in winter because you risk reducing the number of flowers that will bloom next time around. Prune in summer instead when older wood can be cut back without risking the removal of newly formed flower buds.

In summer wait until the last of the shrub’s flowers has fallen and then prune for best results.

Should you deadhead gardenias?

It is a good idea to deadhead gardenias. Removing spent blooms prevents the plant from setting seed. Deadhead a gardenia after the blooms wilt and it will direct its energy into producing flowers allowing you to enjoy more of the wonderful blooms. Remove old flowers and the shrub will look more attractive, too. 

It’s worth deadheading a gardenia weekly throughout the blooming season, pinching off spent flowers or cutting them off just above a leaf set. When the last of the year’s blooms have faded, you can prune gardenias if you want to improve their shape or remove broken stems.

Sarah is a freelance journalist and editor. Previously executive editor of Ideal Home, she’s specialized in interiors, property and gardens for over 20 years, and covers interior design, house design, gardens, and cleaning and organizing a home for H&G. She’s written for websites, including Houzz, Channel 4’s flagship website, 4Homes, and Future’s T3; national newspapers, including The Guardian; and magazines including Future’s Country Homes & Interiors, Homebuilding & Renovating, Period Living, and Style at Home, as well as House Beautiful, Good Homes, Grand Designs, Homes & Antiques, LandLove and The English Home among others. It’s no big surprise that she likes to put what she writes about into practice, and is a serial house renovator. 

How to prune gardenias? Top Tips and Tricks

There are many plants that need maintenance, such as pruning. One such plant is gardenia. There are many ways to prune gardenia but getting the best result will depend on pruning technique. There are some criteria to consider when pruning gardenias so that the results are as optimal as possible and the plant can continue to maintain good conditions.

In this article we will tell you how to prune gardenias, when to do it and what to consider.

Index

900 900 900 to be pruned

The purpose of pruning a gardenia is to redirect its energy and release damaged or withered stems, leaves and flowers. It's good for plants, vol. helps prevent diseases and improves their development and appearance , so this is one of the most important tasks in caring for our plants.

The purpose of gardenia pruning is:

Subscribe to our Youtube channel

This, when properly pruned, will improve the development and appearance of the specimen. As a result, the size and flowering of the plant will increase.

When to prune gardenias

As a general rule, the best time to prune gardenias is in early spring, before the plants resume activity, unless there is a risk of frost. This reduces the loss of juice and, as the developmental stage approaches, the wound will begin to heal quickly . In areas with warm winters, fall pruning may be a good option. Seasonal pruning is carried out once a year.

Gardenias can be cared for at any time of the year. This is a cleaning cut to eliminate suction cups. , those young shoots that stick out between the main stem and branches, as well as yellowed or dried leaves, damaged stems or withered flowers.

How to prune gardenias

To prune gardenias, we need only garden shears, disinfect with alcohol from a pharmacy and wear gloves. There are different types of clipping depending on what we want to achieve, let's take a look at them.

Technical pruning

Maintenance pruning aims to leave room for new healthy growth and remove harmful elements from the plant. This pruning is done in conjunction with other care tasks throughout the year.

First of all, we will remove the suckers as follows:

We will then remove the following unnecessary elements:

Flowering pruning

Flower pruning is carried out annually, usually in late winter or early spring, to increase the flowering of the plant. We will proceed as follows:

Rejuvenation pruning

Rejuvenation pruning is a method in which dry, damaged and useless parts of a plant are removed in order to clean it and sprout new shoots. It is recommended to do this before the start of the flowering season. This is a vigorous pruning that rejuvenates gardenias, although it can be done gradually.

Step by step

Here are the steps for pruning your gardenia:

  1. Press out the growing tips in the first year after planting. Take the tip of each stem with your fingers and place it on the tallest bud or leaf. Press every four to six weeks in spring and summer when gardenias are actively growing. Pinching makes it smaller and fuller.
  2. Cut dried flowers in spring after flowering and wilting . Cut off the entire flower head to keep the gardenia from seeding and weakening the bush. Prune your gardenias indoors and outdoors after picking the flowers.
  3. Trim branches above the leaves or buds of to no more than a quarter of its length to maintain the shape and size of the plant.
  4. Cut dry and damaged wood in spring. Move these branches closer to healthy wood on the same branch or where they join other healthy wood. Pots that are outdoors all year round are more susceptible to dry wood and winter wilt.

I hope that with this information you will be able to learn more about how to prune gardenias and what to keep in mind.


The content of the article complies with our principles of editorial ethics. To report a bug, click here.

Friendship with gardenia. Crown formation. Cuttings

Good evening!

Decided to share my gardenia growing experience. I don’t consider it capricious at all, on the contrary, it seems to me that this is a very hardy and grateful plant. Perfectly tolerates pruning of both the ground part and the roots. It is easy to form a crown, grow in the form of a tree, and if desired, you can make a bonsai.

My beauty reached almost a meter wide crown until I cut it off. And bloomed profusely every year.

But it's better to tell and show everything in order.

I bought a jasmine gardenia like this tiny bush. She is already grown up, but she was even smaller. The picture was taken already in the second flowering, after transplanting into a larger pot.

I really liked that the flower opens the petals literally before our eyes. I photographed every moment while the bud spiraled. And the smell! Even from one flower in the room it smells of a sort of exotic aroma: tart, but with a fresh note.

I'll show pictures to please those who haven't seen it.

Well, then "workdays" began:-) Gardenia grew slowly. Every year in the spring after transplanting, I started pinching all the branches so that over the summer it would branch out properly and there would be more flowers. I did not cut the branches by a third, as advised. Maybe in vain. Perhaps then it would be thicker, because in winter the internodes are extended.

In a word, she grew big. She formed it with a tree on a squat stem.

I cut out everything that grew from under the root. Although young shoots appeared often.

But the crown of my gardesh for some reason grew in breadth much more actively than in height. Apparently, the top point of growth was revealed to her in infancy in order to branch out.

As a result, she swung at the entire window sill, displacing everyone and everything from it, starting with the microwave. At the beginning, ficus and croton were still standing side by side, but soon they had to be removed.

The pot is also required. And although the window sill is 150 cm long and wide, even this size was not enough for her. Of the "neighbors", she still somehow endured a small pot of geraniums and a teapot. Then the geranium began to interfere.

It bloomed, of course, beautifully twice a year. There were 30 buds on it at the same time, but the flowers were crushed. To wash from dust, I had to put it in the middle of the kitchen: I didn’t enter the bathroom.

Flowers become as yellow as butter when they begin to wither.

And when they just bloom, they look like a water lily

But over time, there were less and less flowers, and it occupied more and more space.

This is how she looked last early spring.

Armed with a saw and sawed off all the branches. And since in the middle they were thick and naked, then the goat's horns and legs, 20-30 cm long, remained from the "goat". And there are several leaves on them. Therefore, there is nothing to evaporate moisture. And if so, then the roots must be cut. She took out a lump, and it was all intertwined with roots, even the earth was not visible.

I took a sharp, clean knife and slashed the lump in half. Yes, and cut off the excess from the edges. Well, - I think - now you have a direct road to the trash. But hope dies last. Therefore, I powdered all the sections with root powder and planted them in a fresh earthen mixture.

I shed it with Zircon, sprayed it with Epin, put it in the shade, prayed for health :-) And I started rooting the cuttings.

I did everything for the first time, so I didn’t really hope for success.

Cut cuttings from young side branches. We needed those that had not yet become lignified, but were no longer soft. Cuttings about 10 cm long. Removed the bottom two leaves. Dipped in Kornevin and deepened 1.5 centimeters into peat in half with vermiculite. The leaves are large, so I halved them with scissors so as not to evaporate moisture. I cut off the top of some cuttings so that branching began immediately after rooting. In this case, it is necessary to leave a "stump" of at least 0.5 cm, because when the cut dries out, the axillary buds may be damaged.

I took the smallest cups and then filled them not to the brim. And at the bottom, I also poured fine expanded clay. In a word, she did everything not to rot.

All cuttings were covered either with transparent glasses with a hatch cut out for ventilation, or with cut plastic bottles. I put everything on the foam to provide a little bottom heating. Covered from the sun with a tulle curtain. Often sprayed, and watered only when the substrate dried up properly.

By autumn, the results were as follows.

The mother plant is completely covered with dense foliage. And even managed to bloom a few flowers.

Over the summer, the gardenia had to be transplanted into a larger pot again, as there was an intensive growth of branches from all dormant buds + root growth. Much earlier than I expected, I had to replant. The signal that the roots do not have enough space was leaf chlorosis. As soon as I noticed the first yellowed leaf, I immediately sprayed it with Emerald and immediately transplanted it. For two months, the lump was completely entangled with roots!

Such yellowing of leaf veins on old leaves indicates a lack of nitrogen and that the roots are cramped in a pot. And do not confuse this chlorosis with what occurs when there is a lack of iron. She had enough trace elements, she fertilized regularly.

I planted several rooted cuttings in one pot: there is not enough space on the windowsills.

During the winter, such pretty bushes grew out of them, and in the summer buds appeared.

But alas! The bush has ceased to suit me :-)

I wanted to have something unusual, but small.

Remembering how easily gardenia tolerates pruning of roots, without hesitation, I took out a lump from the pot and cut off a “chunk” of roots with one originally curved stem. From which I decided to grow a tree with a spherical crown on a high curved trunk.

Planted in a small pot, sprinkled with fresh soil, and shed roots with zircon. As always, sprayed with Epin.

Left one short side branch at the bend of the trunk. Bonsai growers claim that the lower lateral branches contribute to the thickening of the trunk. I removed everything superfluous, smeared the sections with brilliant green. I haven’t cut the leaves from the high trunk yet - this is an extra stress. You can remove them after I form the crown.

Do you think gardenia got sick? Nothing like this! She didn’t even drop a single bud and not a single leaf turned yellow.

And soon three flowers bloomed one after another. See the fork of the three branches? It is from this place that a spherical crown will be formed. Before the fork, the trunk will be bare. And in the spring I will shorten all three branches by a third so that the crown becomes thick. On the lower branch, I will also cut a ball of a small crown of the lower level.

And this is how a bush looks like from the remaining three "cuttings". I powdered the wound on the roots with Kornevin, filled up the soil, spilled it with Zircon, consoled it with Epin - and everyone is happy.

Now everyone is wintering quietly, they look great, they hardly grow. They stand under the lamps, and under the pots - foam: gardenia loves to keep its "legs" warm in winter.

If you are interested in care, ask for details in the comments.

Let me briefly say the following.

Gardenia prefers land with an acidic pH - from 3.5 to 5. That is, purchased peat soil for azaleas and gardenias will suit her.

We have a pine forest in front of our house, I often take land there: pines grow on acidic soils. I disinfect, I add pine bark as a baking powder. At the bottom - drainage from expanded clay.

I thoroughly wash the bark, scald it with boiling water and grind it.

I also pour bark near the trunk so that moisture does not evaporate so quickly. Sometimes I sow moss for the summer - it coexists well with gardenia.

I water only when I see that the leaves are no longer so elastic. That is, I do not at all ensure that the earth is constantly wet. Gardenia does not like overflow. The leaves will immediately begin to turn black if watered more often than she wants.

But the humidity of the air is very fond of.

Learn more