Q: Can you suggest why eight of my gardenias died in three months? We planted them in late August 2014. By mid October all were like the pictures. When they required water, our irrigation system was used.

A: It looks to me like the plants simply didn’t get enough water after planting. If you used a typical irrigation system, the sprayed water would wet the leaves but would be shed at the drip line of the plants, not into the interior. This would result in little water going to the root ball.

In a hot month like August, new plants can dry out in a day. It’s best to use hand watering to soak the root ball under the plant twice a week when planting in hot weather.