Osmanthus tea olive

Sienna Mae Heath is a gardening expert with over five years of experience in gardening and landscape design.

Fall in love with the alluring, sweet scent of the Fragrant Tea Olive. This Tea Olive, the Osmanthus Fragrans, has a long bloom time that begins in fall and, in many climates, continues throughout winter and into spring. You will enjoy the lovely aroma for months! This southern favorite isn't only adored for its fragrant, tiny, but abundant blooms. The evergreen foliage is attractive and dense, with leaves similar to a holly.

Osmanthus tea olive

This fragrant, flowering evergreen shrub delights the senses. Since , the editors of Southern Living have been carrying out the mission of the brand: to bring enjoyment, fulfillment, and inspiration to our readers by celebrating life in the South. We inspire creativity in their homes, their kitchens, their gardens, and their personal style. We are a friend they can trust, a guide to the seasons, a helping hand during the holidays, and a relentless champion of the Southern way of life. What's that fragrance perfuming the garden air? It's tea olive, the glossy-leaved shrub known by the scientific name Osmanthus fragrans. Commonly, you can call the plant tea olive or sweet olive, as both names nod to the sweet scent emitted by the plant's tiny, white blooms. This species belongs to the genus Osmanthus. Osmanthus species are drought-tolerant, evergreen shrubs that thrive in full sun or partial shade. Their calling card is their deeply fragrant blooms , which appear throughout the year. The flowers appear as tiny, white blossoms, but their size belies their big, floral perfume. Their biggest bloom happens in the spring and summer, but they also bloom intermittently throughout the year, even in the final days of fall. The New Southern Living Garden Book describes the stats of the evergreen shrub this way: "Long a favorite of Southern gardeners, [tea olive is] broad, dense, compact. Grows at a moderate rate to 15 feet tall and feet wide, though older plants may reach 30 feet tall and feet wide. The plants' foliage is very attractive, with glossy, medium-to-deep-green leaves that grow to around four inches long.

It has fragrant flowers and is a slow growing dwarf to 4 or 5 feet tall.

The new app packed with trusted gardening know-how. A vigorous, upright, evergreen shrub or small tree to 5m tall, with glossy, leathery, finely toothed dark green leaves. Small clusters of highly fragrant, tubular white flowers are produced in autumn, and sometimes in spring and summer; they are followed by ovoid, blue-black fruit to 1cm long. Grow against a warm wall in mild districts; elsewhere it is best grown in a temperate greenhouse. All ratings refer to the UK growing conditions unless otherwise stated.

Sienna Mae Heath is a gardening expert with over five years of experience in gardening and landscape design. She grows her own food and flowers in her native Zone 6B. Sienna Mae runs The Quarantined Gardener blog and encourages the Lehigh Valley to develop victory gardens for sustainable, garden-based living. She is a lead gardener in a Plant-A-Row, which is a program that offers thousands of pounds of organically-grown vegetables to local food banks. Osmanthus fragrans is an evergreen broadleaf shrub or small tree that is known by many common names, most of which allude to its powerful fragrance: fragrant tea olive, sweet osmanthus, sweet olive, fragrant olive. Long grown as a large indoor plant, fragrant tea olive is increasingly popular as an outdoor garden plant in warmer climates, USDA zones 8 to It is a dense, multi-stemmed plant with elongated dark green leathery leaves, producing small but extremely fragrant white flowers in spring, with sometimes a smaller secondary bloom period in fall. In some regions, however, the principal bloom period is fall, and the plant has even been known to bloom sporadically year-round.

Osmanthus tea olive

When the blooms appear, the heady fragrance of a tea olive tree is liable to make you swoon. Since , the editors of Southern Living have been carrying out the mission of the brand: to bring enjoyment, fulfillment, and inspiration to our readers by celebrating life in the South. We inspire creativity in their homes, their kitchens, their gardens, and their personal style. We are a friend they can trust, a guide to the seasons, a helping hand during the holidays, and a relentless champion of the Southern way of life.

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These plants may struggle if grown indoors all year. This plant is indeed a member of the olive Oleaceae family, and it has a delightful scent that is said to resemble jasmine, orange blossoms, ripe peaches, or apricots. Botryosphaeria canker can affect these plants, especially those that are stressed by drought. Tea Tree has been known to be effective for insect bites and allergies as well. The New Southern Living Garden Book notes the plants' intense perfume: "Flowers are powerfully fragrant, with a scent like that of ripe apricots. Grow against a warm wall in mild districts; elsewhere it is best grown in a temperate greenhouse. Shopping with the RHS. Accessed 13 November Yes No. Tea olives are not salt spray tolerant, with the exception of the native Devilwood Osmanthus americanus. This shrub does not like arid conditions. The two spring blooming species — O. Growing conditions. It's quite common to grow a fragrant tea olive in a large pot filled with standard peat-based potting mix, moving it indoors for the winter, then back outdoors during the warm spring and summer months.

This fragrant, flowering evergreen shrub delights the senses. Since , the editors of Southern Living have been carrying out the mission of the brand: to bring enjoyment, fulfillment, and inspiration to our readers by celebrating life in the South.

Follow all directions, precautions and restrictions that are listed. Hybrid between O. It responds well to pruning for shape, to be pruned into a tree or even espalier. Taxon identifiers. It's best to make sure they get a minimum of several weeks outdoors in a sunny location during the spring and summer. Hardiness ratings All ratings refer to the UK growing conditions unless otherwise stated. Reprinted Routledge Abingdon , Use pesticides only according to the directions on the label. Pin It on Pinterest. Neat, upright, oval form. Learn more about The Spruce's Editorial Process. Phytophthora and Pythium root rots are associated with poorly drained or excessively wet soil.