This Gardenia is labeled as "Fist Love".

It is ground growing next to the big leaf Gardenia. As you can see from the photo, the big leaf Gardenia is lush green and doing well. However, the "First Love" leaves appear dull, pale and lacking in vibrance.

It produced a fair amount of flowers last year but sadly this year there was only one flower on the entire plant.

I welcome all suggestions as to how to improve the health of this Gardenia. Thank you!

I assume you give them both acid-loving fertilizer on the same strength/schedule? But if that's not helping, the pH may be too alkaline for it to absorb those nutrients. This article suggests sulphur to change the pH to make the soil itself less alkaline: https://www.thespruce.com/gard...

I wonder if the paler specimen could be getting more water than the greener bush or draining off less effectively for some reason? Have you had an excessive amount of rain this spring/summer like Texas has? Any chance could it have suffered any root damage from digging/shoveling in the area?

Peggy8b said:I assume you give them both acid-loving fertilizer on the same strength/schedule? But if that's not helping, the pH may be too alkaline for it to absorb those nutrients. This article suggests sulphur to change the pH to make the soil itself less alkaline: https://www.thespruce.com/gard...

I wonder if the paler specimen could be getting more water than the greener bush or draining off less effectively for some reason? Have you had an excessive amount of rain this spring/summer like Texas has? Any chance could it have suffered any root damage from digging/shoveling in the area?

Peggy8B
I found the article you provided to be very helpful. Thank you so much!
Now I am learning to use the fertilizer which I haven't been doing in the past. All of the leaves are slowly turning greener overall.
It is still putting on blooms. Hope to see a lot more blooms for years to come.

Glad your leaves are greening up! Good luck with your continued care of your lovelies.