AusBonsai

Bought this gardenia about a year ago and was thinking of trying a shohin tree. A lot of the branches were straight, dead, or coming from a single point. Gave it an initial chop and another trim
Have wired some branches and will generally just grow and trim for a while.

Need to look into leaf reduction and defoliation methods for this type of plant. Hopefully it starts heading in this direction... Any tips or comments always welcome!

Hi Matlea, looks like a fun little project. Coincidentally I just finished root pruning and potting about 60 today. I have run out of pots.!!! I think they are a very underrated species. Also the great thing about them is that like azaleas, there are so many fine roots that it is easy to chop off a lot of the root ball and still give them a very good chance of surviving. At this time of the year I will usually chop off about 80% of the root ball and then just splash on a bit of seasol. This time around I also decided to add some dynamic lifter to the bottom of the pot. Will be interested to see their performance.

Definitely agree that Gardenia are underrated! Looks like it's off to a decent start.
Don't worry too much about leaf reduction yet. Get it growing healthy and in the right direction.
Leaves on these can be reduced to a very small size though. There are some nice ones here at the nursery.

Hi
how would leaf reduction be achieved with a Gardenia, is it just like defoliating a fig??
Cheers
Mal

mal wrote: ↑November 10th, 2012, 8:05 pm Hi
how would leaf reduction be achieved with a Gardenia, is it just like defoliating a fig??
Cheers
Mal

anybody?? i'm also curious about defoliation/leaf cutting times

With most of these fleshy green shrubs I'd be looking at working on both constricting the roots and ramifying the branches to reduce the leaf size. The more branches the more leaves and the less energy to share amongst them all, so the leaf size will lessen. Ramification could be possible by partial defoliation as well as cutting tips.

I'm still experimenting with mine, but I wouldn't do a full defoliation.