What My Gardenia Tells Me

My gardenia is starting to get worried about me being gone this weekend. Actually that’s not true as I haven’t told it yet about my plans as I fear it’s reaction. My gardenia will be left in the hands of my mother and sister and while I wouldn’t say I don’t trust them, I will say that there’s a competition at play and my mother hates losing. I’m hopeful that daily FaceTime will let the gardenia know how much I love and miss it but in my heart I would not be sad if I had someone else to blame for it’s inevitable demise.

My gardenia is telling me that I’m watering it wrong. Unbeknownst to me, there is apparently a right way to water a gardenia and wrong way to water a gardenia. The wrong way is the intuitive way that you would simulate rain by just letting the water fall over the leaves and hit the soil. But no, the gardenia rejects the real world and prefers you to ever so gently spritz water directly to it roots and dirt. I’ve decided that I shall give in to the gardenia’s needs but then to also give one aggressive spritz to the leaves just to show it who’s the boss.

My gardenia is telling me to water it. I don’t think my acting like I don’t know it needs water is working as I spotted another yellow leave on it. Trying a different tactic, I decided to tell the gardenia that I was disappointed and explained that it was hurting me when it does things like this. I may be confusing the gardenia and our toddler. I’m hoping the strategy works on both.

My gardenia is telling me that the pH is too high, there’s not enough nutrients in the soil, there’s too much water, or there’s root problems. Or at least that’s what google tells me when I search for “yellow leaves gardenia”. I picked two more of those yellow indicators off my gardenia this weekend and it has sent me into a flurry of internet searches to try and figure out what exactly my gardenia is telling me.

A quick search finds the following *short* list of potential issues:

• Low on magnesium
• Low on iron (this sounds like a vitamins list)
• Poor drainage and subsequently
• Overwatering
• Crowding
• Pests
• Soil is too cold
• Low humidity
• Water quality (apparently gardenia’s prefer filtered water)
• Diseases

And finally, it could all just be the “normal aging process” of the gardenia. This would mean my gardenia is telling me nothing. It’s just getting older and I’m pretty sure if I point it out it’ll lose a few more leaves just to spite me.

My gardenia told me today to please for the love of god just water me already. I think it was good for our relationship for it to understand who is in charge. While turning on the water, words from my mom popped into my head about some plants not appreciating “really cold” water. Of course this must include the fickle gardenia (I thought while not bothering to Google anything related to this idea). So I quickly turned the temperature to a “moderately cool” and put an end to my gardenia’s complaints. There’s a problem with watering as I filled the soil too close to the top of the plant and often it means taking a few extra minutes to slowly wait for the water to absorb into the soil before adding more. My gardenia doesn’t seem to mind this extra time with me. At least, it hasn’t expressed that. Yet.

My Gardenia is telling me that it needs water and I’m skeptical. Now, I need to preface this with the fact that it’s told me it’s needed water for the past three days and I have watered it dutifully the prior times. But a third time? That just seems like I’m playing with fire. So I’m not going to water it today and see what if it gives me more information tomorrow.

On the plus side, the new buds seem to be thriving and I haven’t noticed any more yellow leaves since pulling off three last week.

I will continue to monitor the water situation.