Thursday, December 8, 2011

Gardenis x 'Kleim's Hardy' with Orange fruit

I guess if you live where Gardenias are dependably hardy, seeing your plants covered with these interesting orange fruits is not anything to get excited about, but I don't. So I got pretty psyched today to see dozens of fruit on each of our 3' tall plants. I must not have been paying attention because I don't remember ever seeing fruit on a gardenia in the Asian Collections where we have a handful of hardy selections, on my own plant that I've had for at least 25 years, in a conservatory, or....anywhere. And they're pretty; orange is a fine color for late fall.

Though we do have a lot of plants, they've all been in the ground less than five years. It'll be interesting to see whether fruiting will be a regular event or this is an uncommon result of particular weather patterns. We did have an odd year weatherwise. Just yesterday, Wednesday, we set the record for daily precipitation in December, 3.4".

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