Trimming

• Have a sharp pair of garden clippers when you are ready to trim your gardenia. If you use rusty or dull clippers, you will bruise its hard woody stems. This diminishes the plant's ability to carry water to its leaves and impacts the overall health of your gardenia.
  
  As always when pruning, remove any dead or bruised parts of the plant. Since you are trimming mainly for aesthetics, let the desired shape of the plant be your guideline. You can safely trim both green wood and older woody stems.
  
  

Timing

• Although the main reason to trim a gardenia bush is shape rather than overall plant health, there are still a few basic guidelines to follow regarding the timing of the pruning. Most gardeners should be able to prune their gardenia every other year but you can prune annually if you prefer.
  
  Prune when your gardenia has finished blooming for the season and all the flowers have died, sometime late in the summer. Pruning later in the season may leave your plant with its tender interior exposed to cold weather conditions, while pruning in the spring after the buds have set means you'll have to trim some of the year's new buds.
  While most types of gardenia only bloom once a year, there are a few gardenias that bloom more than once in a season. If your gardenia blooms several times, wait to prune until it's finished.
  
  

Baskets

• Some people prefer to grow gardenias in hanging baskets, containers or topiary gardens. You will need to prune these gardenias more frequently to maintain a particular style or appearance. Follow the same general pruning guidelines when trimming your indoor or container-grown gardenia.