~a Queen and an olive~

~~~~~

Night-blooming Jessamine, Cestrum nocturnum.

Or...Raat ki Rani (Queen of the night) in Hindi.

I've read where it's a perennial to zone 8, 8b or 9 - and I'm zone 8b, so I'm hopeful that they'll survive our mild winters (it may dieback, but hopefully will return).

It's considered invasive in some tropical areas.  I can't imagine a more lovely invasive.

The fragrance in the late, late evening is just wonderful - mild, lingering - it 'wafts' more than oozes.  Does that make sense?

~~~~~

This is a less than good image of my tea olive, Osmanthus fragrans - a once upon a time plant of about a foot tall, planted at the base of my side deck - that now is about 15-18 feet tall.  Now it looks more a small tree than a shrub, and when the weather cools, and it starts blooming - it's fragrance fills my entire garden.  At it's base are 5-6 foot stalks of the fall-blooming forsythia sage, Salvia madrensis - and to it's right is the texas mountain laurel, Sophora secundiflora. 

~~~~~

On difficult days, difficult Mondays filled with meetings that remind one of circular conversations, realities that make one wish to sit in the lab's parking lot, watching the clouds float by - on days when one grows weary of listening to the news, weary of the chaos - yes, on such days one feels grateful for the perfume of the tea olive, for the lingering scent of the Queen of the Night - grateful for these remarkably sane and undemanding fragrances, greeting one as they arrive home. 

Comments

[Annie in Austin]

That tea olive is huge, Pam - so far my three plants are much smaller in Austin. After 8 years the largest one is about 6 feet tall and is not solid but see-through.

My Night-blooming jasmine lived through one winter but not the second. I've read advice to take cuttings and root them to carry over the winter under cover.

Thanks for the reminder that you have Salvia madrensis - mine just started blooming.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

[Pam]

Annie, I remember one of my first walks in downtown Charleston, in the early fall - and smelling my first time. I just stopped on the sidewalk, asking my friend 'what is THAT?' What a wonderful fragrance. The tea olive during that evening walk was a tall one, like mine is now - and it looked more like a small tree than a shrub. I've been trying to prune mine more into a tree-ish shape, and we're definitely almost there. Oh - and the Salvia madrensis - who says we don't have fall color?

[kate]

Ah, the simplicity and power of scent - one of the reasons I garden. A whiff of a flower and life's worries etc. fall away!

[kate]

Oh and I meant to say - what an incredible photograph! The tea olive is captured so beautifully.