Nasty... looks like aphids to me. Give it a "bath" with soapy water. Spray the tops and bottoms of the leaves and the stems, the apex of each leaf,,, every crevice and let the soapy water dry on there. so not rinse it off. it should be fine, though.
Thanks! I will get on get on the soapy water and hopefully I can resolve this. I love my gardenia's!!!
IF it's white fly and they come back you can vacuum them off.....but you must clean that vacuum out far away from your plants.. LOL
Aphids leave an exoskeleton as they shed their skin and grow... that is what all that debris looks like to me... yuck along with the globby shiny looking liquid on the leaf to the left... aphid dew.. Huge infestation. Are there any white flys flying off if you disturb the plant? then white fly is probably the pest, but that just looks like debris shed from a heavy infestation of aphids to me. this is what I notice before I even am thinking about aphids.. then I go buy ladybugs to release in my greenhouse, but in the home I would suggest the soapy water unless you can find a few ladybugs and place the plant outside in a protected place for a day or two and let them take care of whatever pest it is. Ladybugs will take care of any pest on the plant.
Yeah, they could be whitefly...but then yours look differently than ours. We have a thing here we call "whitefly" which typically select the undersides of brassica leaves. I just can't see these little beasties clearly on the foto. Ach meid, but like you said---the fix is the same.
