Dama de Noche (Night Blooming Jasmine)

Known in the Philippines as Dama de Noche (Lady of the Night), the Cestrum nocturnum waxes paradoxical when grown in temperate areas. It thrives as a perennial plant in the warmer regions with no frost in the winter and actually tolerates cold temperatures outdoors. As you move farther north, however, it becomes a test of patience and tolerance. 

My Dama went into the TINZ, it is clear now, because I had no idea what these things were supposed to look like indoors in winter. In a word: pathetic. Not nearly alarming or desperate enough so that you will just toss it into the compost, but borderline is-it-dying-no-it's-sprouting-new-leaves-but-wilting-at-the-same-time-but-wait-it-looks-near-death-argh.

Since I also grew up with this behemonth growing all over the place, I expected them to be as vigorous here in my office with the heat at 22C and humidity level at a constant 60 percent (more for my comfort than anything, really; the plants came into the scene because it seemed silly to maintain this habitat for just me).No such luck. C. nocturnum becomes leggy and wobbly as winter progresses, dropping its leaves at random and wanting a lot of water while also choking on it if you give it any.Throwing it into the pit would have been a no-brainer but whilst it is trying to die, you will also see it is very aggressively trying to grow as shiny new shoots appear at the tips.What to do, whattodo, watudu.

It is entirely possible I just had a young plant but the chronic struggle was so irritating that in the spring, with temperatures still going down to about 5C, out it went into the ground, in a spot where it could be easily ignored.

And look at it go!

Left: Cestrum nocturnum planted in the ground in spring; Right: Same plant, early summer.

From a leggy height of about 20 inches, it is now 36 inches tall; its growth checked only with constant pruning. Throughout summer, Dama de Noche is fertilized only by run-off water from other potted plants around it. It got a lot of morning sun but starts to look pathetic around noon. By September, it started to bloom. The wafting smell is actually depressing if you are pining for the tropics. Otherwise, it's probably glorious.

C. nocturnum starts blooming in September and even indoors (right) will continue to produce buds

This plant has been consigned to winter death in that spot but its amazing performance during the summer earned it a reprieve. It has been dug up (in mid-bloom too), put in a huge pot with 4 parts gritty mix and two parts potting soil. This potting medium is significantly faster draining than its medium in the previous winter. Hopefully, that will be good enough to see it through its second winter. If it ever stops blooming, it will be pruned to a less hulking size and the cuttings will be rooted in the same pot. Live or die, it doesn't matter. It is still in the TINZ.

Propagation

Dama de Noche is extremely easy to propagate. If you are keeping it in the pot, you will soon find out that it grows quite fast when it is warm and you might have to trim your plant. Pay attention to the branches. If you want to root some cuttings, look for young branches and cut at the point just below where the stem turns slightly woody and kind of brown. I do this throughout winter in case the parent plant throws another tantrum and decides to die. 

Remove the leaves to expose about 6 inches of bare stem and put it in a tall glass of water. Tap water is fine, the plant doesn't seem to care. Put it in a brightly-lit area, near a window, for example. The cuttings will root in a week or so but you should wait until the water roots have grown to several inches before potting it up. When the roots look like the ones in the photo on the left, it is ready to be potted. Because this plant tends to be leggy, it is a good idea (at least for visual purposes) to plant 3 to 4 rooted cuttings in a medium-sized 6-inc pots.  

This is a tropical plant, remember, so you want your potting soil to have the ability to retain water but it should also drain rapidly. To achieve this, use normal potting soil and add a third part of either pumice or perlite. A freshly-planted rooted cutting will be very thirsty as its water roots adjust to the soil so water the pot thoroughly. It will look miserable for a few days but once it recovers its sparkly look, you can put it in dappled sun and gradually move it to a spot where it will get full sun. 

Without a doubt, this plant behaves much better when planted in the ground, even in areas where summers do not get too hot. You know it needs water when it starts to look like it's about to pass out. The leaves droop and wrinkle from dehydration and will recover after being watered. This will not kill the plant but repeated dehydration is obviously not good for anyone so try to avoid it.

If you live somewhere warm with no frost, definitely plant this thing outdoors where you can smell the flowers when it blooms. Remember that this plant grows into a humongous bushy thing that might need a trellis for support. In the tropics, it is often seen leaning against roofs or fences, in full sun. To keep it manageable, do not be afraid to trim it occasionally. It actually becomes bushier that way. 

And no, I have no idea what the fruits look like or how to sow the seeds. I've never seen either. 

Fertilizer and Pests

Fertilizing the potted plant, if you have it in the pot, is nothing special---use whatever fertilizer you use but apply it at half-strength every two months. In between, make sure you water it enough to drench the soil to avoid excessive build-up of various things the plant does not like. In the ground, you can be more liberal with your feeding. The 9-3-6 NPK formulation works best. Dama de Noche does not need those silly bloom-boosting 'roid fertilizers they tell you to use. It has its cycle and it knows what to take and how to store them for their bloom time. 

Unfortunately, this plant is salad to a lot of bugs, particularly several species of moths. When planted outside, however, you have better chances of just letting the surroundings take care of these pests. Caterpillars will be plucked out by birds and eggs will be eaten by whatever eats them. Indoors and in a pot, you need a bottle of horticultural oil to keep these pests at bay. You also should water occasionally with BT-treated water to kill bugs that lay eggs in the soil. 

If your neighbours have the habit of spraying their lawn with pesticides, herbicides and whatnot, the friendly, pest-controlling bugs will most likely be dead. Use fish emulsion. Pests hate it and it is a good foliar fertilizer as well. Consider the possibility of feeding birds to attract them to your yard. They will take care of caterpillars and grubs as well. Do not feed the birds early in the morning, let them clean your yard first. Feed them brunch instead. 


 

 

Rosal (Gardenia)

I was warned, but our mother had this plant all over the yard when we were growing up. The stench made me sneeze when all of them were blooming all at once but the plant, when healthy, is very nice---it is bushy with dark shiny leaves. This is the only plant I have seen that looks perfect when it is in bloom--the flowers are as creamy white as the leaves are glossy green. The contrast is amazing.

After a short autumn rain, gardenias look ridiculously photogenic.

Well-meaning people will advise you gently to get the hardy kind instead but of course you will not do that because that variety just does not hold a candle to the magnificent tropical kind, especially the flower with its inexplicably mesmerizing stench.

Against my best judgement, I acquired one pot of gardenia from a supermarket and it immediately threw a tantrum in the car and the fit lasted throughout spring regardless of my--I have to stress this---well-researched ministrations. Out of the nursery, the plant had about 50 flower buds in various stages of promise which it dropped one by one--probably in reaction to being transported from Florida somewhere to the frigid climes of the continent. Despite being positioned in a prime warm and sunny spot, the leaves eventually turned yellow/ The plant continued to produce buds but dropped those too, despite the absence of any visible pest (yes, I checked with a magnifying glass, you smartass). So, by May, the gardenia is kicked out into the TINZ. In fact, it was yanked out of the pot, plopped into a hole in the ground and completely ignored.

Well. No one likes it, even out there. Bugs leave it alone, the squirrels do not dig near it, the rabbits don't touch it and even the woodchucks walk around it. It's really a cunt of a plant.

This has the interesting side effect of allowing the bush to not just survive after being shoved into the ground, but actually thrive. It flushed with new leaves and by mid-summer, it was blooming non-stop. Bugger.

In the ground, unmolested by any kind of pest, blooming without pause.

Now it is autumn and the dilemma is whether it will be worth it to pull it out again and overwinter it indoors. This idea percolated for weeks until temperatures started going below 15C at night--a personal threshold at which point all tropical plants currently outside will be prepared for the stuffy indoors for the winter.

Sigh. Alright. If this gardenia survives being yanked out of the ground and shoved back into a pot, then fine. It goes indoors. But only after a soap/oil bath. With cold water. No special treatment.

Holding it firmly at the base stem--make sure you are not showing any sign of hesitation when you do this--give it a mighty pull until it is disengaged from the soil. Then just put it down somewhere while you get the pot and the potting media. (you can't be bothered to prepare everything before hand, even if it will reduce the shock on the plant). Mix in whatever will seem to you as the reasonable amount of organic azalea fertilizer (or else read the directions on the bag and then halve it). Make sure your medium is airy with some potting soil in it or you'd be watering every day--this is much more attention than a TINZ plant deserves. I used the gritty mix as base and added a couple of cups of potting soil into the 10-inch nursery pot I shoved it into. There were some debris lying around, I put them in as well. Into the pot this diva plant goes, water it in to settle the soil and just leave it out in the sun.

After this deliberately ungentle treatment, it will probably die, thus saving you the trouble of vacillating between bringing it in or leaving it out. Or it will bloom. Mine did. Argh. Twice. I have my eye on it now, dimly wishing it will die of transplant shock. Of course it won't. Because that's just the kind of plant it is. 

In the pot, regrouping.

Someone in Zone 5 said they leave their potted gardenia outside until it gets really cold, just above freezing. It is always the first to go out and the last to go in. So you can still change your mind over the prospect of what will surely be a winter battle with the prima donna.

I suppose it makes perfect sense to also have a jar of soap spray ready, as well as alcohol spray, nets, neem oil spray, a bottle of Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) for fungus gnat control, big transparent plastic bags for humidity control (punch a few holes in), fairy dust, holy water, bear traps and tranquilizer dart (for you, when you go berzerk in January after months of gardenia struggle).

Just go along with the drama, if you will. But dare it to push you one last time and spend the rest of its short pathetic life outside in the snow, along with its host of admirers and hangers-on across species--spider mites, scales, aphids, snails, vampire bats and mutant anthrax viruses the size of a wart.  Who needs the aggravation, right.

Try not to think of the perfect flower and its perfect scent, set against a background of perfect, shiny green leaves.

As a parting word, I am cutting and pasting a portion of a now-legendary thread on Garden Web Forum, perfectly summarizing the joys of having gardenias among your collection of plants:


"Posted by: ROBERT HUGGINS - 10 ) on Thu, Aug 12, 99 at 14:51 DEAR JOAN, ONLY AN IDIOT WOULD SPEND THAT MUCH TIME AND EFFORT FOR A SIMPLE PLANT!MY FRIENDS RECOMMENDED THAT I TAKE UP GARDENING TO RELAX AND ENJOY NATURE.OVER THE PAST SIX YEARS I BOUGHT EIGHT BEAUTIFUL AND FRAGANT GARDENIAS,MYSTERY,FIRST LOVE AND ETC AND AFTER SIX YEARS THESE SIMPLE PLANTS HAS TAUGHT ME HOW TO RELAX.AFTER SIX YEARS I TAKE FOUR VALUIM AND A HALF A GALLON OF SCOTCH AND STAGGER OUT FOR MY NEXT TRY TO KEEP MY ONE PLANT ALIVE.AFTER 3000 HRS ON THE INTERNET,GARDENING BOOKS AND HELP FROM THREE HUNDRED PROFESSIONAL GROWERS AND FOUR GARDENING CDS.HERE WHAT I HAVE LEARN. THEY LIKE WATER BUT YOU HAVE TO KEEP THE SEMI DRY.THEY LOVED SUN BUT YOU HAVE TO KEEP IN THE SHADE.YOU FEED THEM OFTEN.DISCRIBED AS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN TWO DAYS AND TWO YEARS ONLY ON SUNDAYS WITH A BLUE MOON RISING.THEY LOVED NORTHERN EXPOSURE IF YOU HAVE THEM ON THE SOUTHERN.THEY LOVE ACID AND IRON UNLESS YOU GIVE IT TO THEM.THEY LOVE TO GROW SPIDER MITES,WHICH YOU CANT SEE,AND APHIDS. I HAVE FOUND IF YOU BUY OLDER PLANTS THEY TAKE LONGER TO DIE.MY FRIEND SUGGESTED THAT WHEN ONE OF THE SIMPLE PLANTS WASNT DOING WELL TO MOVE TO THE NORTHERN SUN WHICH A LOT.IT DIED QUICKER.WELL I HAVE TO GO NOW MY FRIENDS IN THE WHITE JACKETS ARE COMING TO PULL ME AWAY FROM MY BELOVED GARDENIA. ITS OKAY I HEAR THEY HAVE A SALE ON GARDENIA IN THE NOVELTY SHOP." 

Winter Update: Indoor in the Kitchen

Adult Adeniums in Gritty Mix

Potting Up Adult Adeniums

I repotted my adult adeniums in this mix at the end of spring 2013. it is now late summer and the results have been more than satisfactory. The nature of the potting medium makes it way easier to tend to these plants in that, they need no tending at all. Even if it rains everyday, the medium drains so freely that they never soak over a prolonged period. When it isn't raining, they are fine being watered twice a week, if I remember it.

The pots are top-dressed with whatever I have lying around, mainly to keep moisture from evaporating too fast. Here they are. Left photos were taken in early spring and right photos were taken late summer. None of them has flowered; I don't really care.