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We’re having some of the warmest days of the year now and yet here I am thinking about winter. Why? Because there’s just no way my gardenias would be looking this good if we hadn’t had a fairly mild winter followed by plenty of rain in the early spring.<\/p>\n

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Kleim’s Hardy has been in my garden for about four years. Some years are better than others in terms of the blooms – this year is spectacular. I think that is partially due to the fact that there was almost no winter damage. I only had to cut back a few twigs on each plant in my mini gardenia hedge that consists of five Kleim’s Hardy bushes. Less dead wood = more gardenia flowers.<\/p>\n

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Kleim’s Hardy is one of three gardenias you might want to try if you live in the Pacific Northwest. It truly lives up to its name. In 4 years I have only had to replace one plant and I’m pretty sure it was not due to the winter weather.<\/p>\n

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The other two gardenias that do well up here on the left coast are “Chuck Hayes” and “Frost Proof”. I haven’t tried either of them. I’ve never even seen “Chuck Hayes” in real life but the blooms look beautiful. I don’t care for the look of the blooms on “Frost Proof” but maybe I am prejudiced because of the name. It sounds like something you should use to wrap your meat for the freezer. I’m happy with my Kleim’s Hardy because I love the heavenly fragrance, the look of the blooms, its compact size, and its excellent performance in my garden.<\/p>\n

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This summer is providing the perfect weather for the gardenias. They are able to set buds because of the night time temperatures in the 50s-60s while the mid 70s-mid 80s temperatures in the day time bring out the heady fragrance. My little gardenia hedge is planted in a sheltered area of the patio where it gets sun almost all day. Planted not far away against the chimney is a Star Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) which blooms at the same time as the gardenias. The intoxicating smell is almost too much – except that it’s not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re having some of the warmest days of the year now and yet here I am thinking about winter. Why? Because there’s just no way my gardenias would be looking this good if we hadn’t had a fairly mild winter … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[66,434,78,22,376,337,334],"class_list":["post-10559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-for-your-garden","tag-evergreens","tag-for-your-garden","tag-perennials","tag-plants","tag-scent","tag-summer-garden","tag-winter-garden"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freshbynorthwest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freshbynorthwest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freshbynorthwest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshbynorthwest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshbynorthwest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10559"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/freshbynorthwest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10574,"href":"https:\/\/freshbynorthwest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10559\/revisions\/10574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshbynorthwest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freshbynorthwest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshbynorthwest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshbynorthwest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}