My mom gave me her braided gardenia tree last year and it was looking great for the first month or so after moving it inside my overwintering room and even gave me a few beautiful and fragrant blooms. I had a thrips problem on some of my plants so I was spraying mixes of spinosad and horticultural oil along with neem oil and insecticidal soap. The neem oil seemed to not mix well and left a nasty residue on the leaves so I ended up washing it off with a mild soap mix. I think between the neem oil and soap the leaves on the gardenia became damaged and started turning pale and wrinkly looking. I trimmed off the worst of them and kept an eye on things but was relieved to have gotten rid of the thrips.

The leaves seemed to recover from the insecticide treatments but then I started noticing all of the top growth was very pale looking and seemed overall unhealthy. Also, the dark green healthy leaves that remained have been gradually yellowing starting at the veins and working outwards to the rest of the leaf. The top growth seems to go from pale green to light yellow and the bottom growth goes from dark green to yellow veins and gradually the whole leaf becomes yellow. I also noticed that the brown woody trunk and stems was peeling off and is now more green than woody looking.

I tested the soil and the PH appears fine at 5.9. However, the TDS was high at over 3000 ppm. I know my tap water is around 240 ppm with a high bicarbonate level so I decided to flush the soil with fox farm sledgehammer and distilled water. This brought it down to 1500 ppm. It took a while for the soil to dry and the next time I watered I noticed it only took a little bit before running off so I decided to take a look at the roots. Most of the root ball was healthy but the bottom had the beginning signs of rot. I washed off the soil, trimmed away the infected roots, soaked the roots in a mild H202 solution and repotted with fresh mixed soil then watered lightly with some beneficial microbes to help rejuvenate the roots. After a week the soil was dry and I was able to water enough to where it seemed like the plant was taking up the water again and the roots were making a comeback.

Unfortunately the foliage has continued to decline and I’m not sure what else to do. I’ve tried epsom salt and micronutrient foliar sprays, adding iron tone to the soil, increasing humidity, increasing and decreasing light but nothing seems to work. I am wondering if the leaves sustained too much damage and cannot photosynthesize properly? Please see the attached photos. It has lost about half the foliage it had when I first got it and I’m looking for any advice on how to save it. Maybe pruning the branches to help it regrow what was lost? Once it warms up I was planning on bringing it back outside but would like to see it improve first.