There’s a lot of misinformation regarding coffee grounds and how they affect your garden (for better or worse).
This can cause a lot of confusion and concern for more finicky plants such as gardenias and roses.
Some sources claim that the grounds are a perfect substitute for fertilizer on acid-loving plants or kill/repel all sorts of pests.
Others claim the caffeine will kill your plants and destroy beneficial microbes, earthworms, and other soil-dwellers.
However, sharing coffee with your Gardenia bush is genuinely sharing the love. Your gardenia will gladly accept the grainy gift of used coffee grounds.
Coffee grounds have many great nutrients that can augment your plant’s fertilizer and encourage better growth and flowering.
There are even a few ways you can donate them: through tea treatments, composting, or direct application.
Plus, it’s essentially free organic matter that you’d otherwise discard after a single-use.
How To Use Coffee Grounds for Gardenia Plants
It’s easy to apply used coffee grounds, either as composting or tea.
However, before getting into the actual application, we should address the elephant in the room: coffee myths.
Common Myths About Coffee Grounds
There are several myths about coffee grounds, which can often lead to some poor gardening choices.
Here are some of the big ones and the facts.
Coffee grounds are highly acidic
This is perhaps the biggest myth out there.
In reality, the acids in coffee grounds are water-soluble and will have minimal effect on acidic soil.
Research has determined that the grounds themselves have a pH of only 6.5 to 6.8, which is at the threshold of neutral (7.0).
There is also an independent report done by Washington-based Soil and Plant Laboratory, Inc. for the magazine Sunset, which tested a sample of used coffee grounds from Starbucks (we will ignore the oxymoron here) and determined it had a pH of 6.2.
While the study itself has no real academic merit, Sunset published the results online, which is probably one of the main reasons people still believe this myth.
Coffee grounds are high in nitrogen.
While there is some truth to this when looking at coffee’s NPK, it’s pretty low in nitrogen compared to commercial fertilizers.
They are rated at 2% percent nitrogen by volume, and this nitrogen ends up feeding microorganisms instead of your plants (which can still be quite beneficial).
However, when used as a composting material, the grounds have a C/N ratio of 20:1 and help maintain higher composting temperatures.
This latter fact is perhaps where this myth gained its footing and why using grounds as part of a composting process does have a positive nitrogen-based benefit on the soil.
Coffee harms/kills plants.
This is another big one, based on studies where high concentrations of caffeine were used.
The myth also weighs in on the fact that caffeine is a natural insecticide and can slow the spread of (or even kill) some bacteria and fungi.
In reality, there’s little evidence to prove that coffee grounds can harm or kill plants under normal gardening conditions and may benefit them.
A study published in the journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening (Hardgrove & Livesley, 2016) tested the effects of coffee grounds on five different commercial crops (broccoli, leek, radish, sunflower, and viola).
They found the plants suffered from a period of stunted growth, followed by increased yields, and attributed this to a combination of harmful compounds and beneficial effects on the soil itself.
It should be noted that there is some evidence to suggest coffee grounds can kill seeds and seedlings but did not harm established plants.
Coffee grounds kill earthworms.
This is unsubstantiated outside of cases where grounds were the only available food source.
There has been no hard evidence of increased earthworm fatalities due to coffee grounds in cases where other composting materials were present.
Applying Coffee Grounds Directly
You can spoon the coffee grounds directly on top of your plant’s soil to serve as a form of mulch.
The grounds will bind together when they dry out and repel excess water.
Adding some compost, leaves, or mulch on top will help the grounds retain moisture and will speed up the composting process of your chosen organic matter.
Coffee grounds can stunt weeds and help block them from sprouting, which can reduce the amount of manual weeding.
While not proven, there is some evidence suggesting coffee grounds on the surface may also repel slugs and snails.
Alternatively, you can mix the grounds into the soil, where they’ll provide not only organic matter but also improve aeration.
Remember, they’re not a substitute for fertilizer but instead can be used to augment the feedings and improve beneficial microbial populations that would otherwise feed off of the fertilizer.
Applying as a Compost
Mix equal parts of coffee grounds, grass clippings, and leaves to create a simple compost that can keep your gardenia’s roots warm while providing tasty organic material.
You can also put the coffee grounds in your actual compost pile (along with the paper coffee filters or an equal amount of leaf matter) to boost the potency and efficiency of the compost pile.
Not only will this boost the compost, but it will generally benefit any worms, especially in worm boxes, as long as you continue adding an equal amount of carbon material along with the grounds.
You can then use this compost as usual around your gardenias.
Applying as a Tea Treatment “Liquid Fertilizer”
The third common method of using coffee is playing barista and serving your plants a bucketful when it’s time to water them.
Related: How To Make Compost Tea
To do this, grab 2 cups of your used coffee grounds to 5 gallons of water.
Allow the bucket to steep overnight, then use the resulting weak coffee blend to water your plants.