Early Summer in N.E. Downunder - Gardenia augusta is blooming

Beautiful and what a photo :-))

Gorgeous Bernieh, great bloom, great shot..;

These are the first ever blooms on my potted Gardenia. Thanks Simbad, Crssue and Homebird.

The flowers start off as a brilliant white and then slowly turn a creamy yellow over the following few days. The perfume is just wonderful too.

Your description is perfect....:))) can almost smell it...

On my homepage the thumbnail looked like a white rose - so I was surprised to see it is actually a Gardenia! It's a very nice looking flower as well. :-))

From a distance it does look like a rose, doesn't it? But no, I still don't have one single rose plant growing at my place yet!

Any particular reason why you don't grow roses? Is it because of the heat/dry season?

Balcony, I grew up with a Dad who was nuts about roses. He had the touch, because so many people who tried to grow roses in this part of the world found it so difficult with many succumbing to black spot, but somehow Dad's roses always looked terrific. He did spend every available minute of his spare time looking after them though. They needed a lot of work to look great. I think that coloured my view of growing them. It just seemed like a lot of hard work. Of course, with the new varieties available today, it probably is a whole lot easier.

Yes, Black Spot is a great nuisance on roses but as you say there are newer varieties today that are a lot more resistant to this illness.

As I've no room on the balcony for "traditional" size roses I grow miniature roses in one of the small flower troughs that sit on the bar that runs right around the middle of the railings. I've had several different colours in it for most of the 10 years we've lived in this flat. I can't be 100% sure but I think the deep red one in the centre of the trough is one of the original 3 I put in at least 9 years ago! I have photos on my computer for most of these 9 years. There are probably some amongst my photos on here that I've uploaded!

Perfect flower.