Wintering Gardenias in Hanging Baskets

Cheryl says, ‘I have two gardenias in hanging baskets. I’d like to keep going over the winter. Anything special that I should do?’

Well, God bless you for having two gardenias. They’re so hard, they’re very tricky.

They like a lot of light, and they like a lot of humidity. That’s the main thing over the winter. Almost letting them dry out to the point of where they wilt because you can overwater them really quickly, especially in the winter, but humidity is like the main thing they need.

The best place is the southern window, no heat vent near them. If there is a vent there, close that off and block it off in some way, because that dry air is constantly blowing on it, it’s making the humidity very low and that’s not what that plant likes.

Put them in your shower. That is kind of silly to say, but there are some plants that like when you go to get a shower. If you take it in like the bathroom with you once in a while It does help. I’ve heard that as a trick for humidity. Yeah, and then pebbles under that kind of does help, but it’s really just more absorbing into your air more so than anything. But it does help create a little bit of humidity around there.

That’s my mom’s favorite. She has gardenia flowers, perfume, everything. She loves them and I bought her one once and I mean it survived for a little while, but it was hard. 

They do like a lot of fertilizer too. I wouldn’t do anything just yet, but maybe in March, like right when they start to get longer and stuff like that. That’s when I would hit it with a good fertilizer. Hopefully it makes it that long. They’re just very tricky. Let us know, Cheryl. Good luck with that.

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