osmanthus

Conjuring up a Conger

I can honestly say that no plant perfumes the garden better than the amazing Osmanthus fragrans ‘Conger Yellow’. We currently grow nine cultivars of tea olive, but none can hold a candle to the fragrance of this yellow-flowered clone. Anyone visiting the garden in September/October is dazzled by the fragrance from up to 200′ away…a

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Add a little variegation–

We have really enjoyed the sprig foliage show of Osmanthus fragrans ‘Qiannan Guifei’ for the last few weeks. This spring-emerging variegated foliage adds a whole new level of “wow” to the sweetly fragrant tea olive shrub, Osmanthus fragrans. This new selection, introduced from China to the US by our friend Ted Stephens of Nurseries Caroliniana,

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“Little” Hariyama

Looking quite lovely atop our crevice garden is Osmanthus heterophyllus ‘Hariyama’. This incredibly heavily-spined seedling of Osmanthus ‘Sasaba’ was brought to the US by plantsman Ted Stephens, who acquired it from Ishiguro Nursery in Japan. Our 15 year old plant has topped 10′ in height. Earlier in the fall, it was adorned with small, fragrant

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Soooo Sweet!

Have you ever been seated by someone who exercised no self control when it came to their application of perfume to the point that they left you gasping for fresh air? Well, there’s a shrub with the same degree of insanely sweet scented flowers, Osmanthus heterophyllus ‘Kaori Hime’. This fascinating Japanese selection of the Japanese/Korean/Taiwanese

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The Osmanthus continue

The fragrance of the fall-flowering osmanthus continues. First, we saw good rebloom on Osmanthus fragrans ‘Tianxiang Taige’. This amazing cultivar has the largest flowers of any of the selections of this species. The overpoweringly sweet fragrance of Osmanthus heterophyllus ‘Kaori Hime’ has been hard to miss over the last couple of weeks. Despite having tiny

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The Fragrance of Fall

Perfuming the garden this week are the amazing Osmanthus fragrans. This Chinese native evergreen shrub is unquestionably the most fragrant flowering plant in the garden. When the clusters of small flowers open early October, they emit a sweet fragrance that can easily waft for 200 feet. While we have nine clones in the gardens at

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