Planting, Growing, and Caring For Jasmine Flowers
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The sweetly-scented jasmine flower can fill a room or a garden with its heady scent. Though jasmine is a vine usually grown outdoors, some varieties can also be grown as houseplants. There is some confusion regarding jasmine and which variety is fragrant. Read more about growing jasmine.
Jasmine can be pruned as a shrub near the house or a walk so that its intense fragrance can be enjoyed by passersby as well as the hummingbirds and butterflies that are drawn to the flowers. The genus Jasminum contains more than 200 vines and shrubs.
Types of Jasmine
Common jasmine or Poet’s jasmine (Jasminum officinale), also called True Jasmine, is a deciduous vine with clusters of starry, pure-white flowers that bloom all summer. It’s a twining climber with rich green leaves that have five to nine leaflets, each up to 2½ inches long. The very fragrant flowers are up to 1 inch in diameter.
Hardy to zone 7, the vine grows vigorously ( 1 to 2 feet per year, up to 20 feet) and looks stunning climbing a large pergola, fence, or very large trellis. In the landscape, jasmine can also be pruned as a shrub near the house or near a walk so its intense fragrance can be enjoyed and so you can watch hummingbirds and butterflies come to the flowers. Common Jasmine is native to Asia.
Winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) is an “old-timey” shrub often found around Victorian homes. The beautiful yellow flowers are unscented, 1-inch wide, and they appear in winter or early spring before the leaves unfold. Winter jasmine is a good bank cover that will spread by rooting where the stems touch the soil. It is also very attractive when planted above retaining walls, with the branches cascading over the side. Hummingbirds love this vigorous vine!
Most other Jasminum species are semi-tropical vines, which are best planted in the spring after the danger of frost has passed.
Not a True Jasmine
Star jasmine or Confederate jasmine look similar but are not true jasmines. It is actually native to China and is known scientifically as Trachelospermum jasminoides. Hardy in USDA plant hardiness zones 7B through 10, the phlox-like flowers bloom on twining stems in spring and summer and are highly scented.
Catherine Boeckmann
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While jasmine is a climbing vine, you can train it to go down if planted in a container from an elevated area. You will need to make sure that it is placed in a spot where it cannot attach and climb up anything. You will also need to do some early work to force it to go down, like using plant ties around the container to force the vines to go down.
It would also be a good idea to check with your local cooperative extension or garden center to see what jasmine varieties do best in your area and if there are any that are more likely to work as a trailing plant.
I have a 15 year old jasmine hedge that has become overly thick and woody. It is pruned regularly but over time the stems have become thick and the hedge is several feet thick. It's about 8 feet tall, covering a fence. If we prune back to, say, a foot thick hedge almost all leafs will be eliminated. Will the plant resprout? Our climate is mild enough that the plants grow year-round.
Hi Keith,
Jasmine is hard to kill, so you can definitely heavily cut it back. Cut back the jasmine to about 2 feet from the ground. However, keep in mind that it won’t bloom for 2 or 3 years after such a heavy cutting.
Hard to kill? I have had about 6 plants in year or so and can not keep one alive. The flowers turn brown. I've planted them in the ground as directed and also repotted them. dead
Can you please advice me, I bought a jasmine plant few weeks ago, I've placed it in the living room in a partially shaded area but it turned brown, I've been watering it every 3 days as it's hot right now. So I've moved it to the front door entrance where its sunny. Do you think that will help the plant in growing.. because the pods are there but it's not blooming.
I have a Maid of Orleans plant that is thriving. I want to propagate several more. Cuttings are mentioned in the article, but growth medium is not. Water? Soil?... Thank you for your answer.
One more question, she blooms well, but not as thickly as I would prefer and see in pictures. Should I prune it to achieve this? Or just fertilize? This is early spring and it is setting its first flowers. It was outdoors last summer and in a south window this winter and grew considerably in both locales. I am going to repot into a larger pot and set it out for the summer. The article says prune after blooms. It bloomed all spring and summer and into the fall last year, and well past Christmas in the house. Do I wait until then to prune? And get cuttings?
Thank you!
Jasmine plants grow well in regular, well-drained garden soil with moderate levels of soil fertility and moisture. You should prune your plant in early auturmn to get it ready for the following year of blooms.
I have an indoor maid of orleans jasmine. It flowered only twice, and became dormant. I repotted it, and it grew large leaves, but no flowers.
1. I want it to be short and bushy.
2. How do I prune it properly? It only grows long shoots, but doesn't flower. Root system is healthy.
3. How do I prune it? Do I remove terminal shoots? I need to know what I need to remove to keep it short and bushy.
Thanks in advance.
I purchased several Jasmine from Lowe’s, they r tied to a stick support. R we suppose to remove the ties and stick, i have a trellis structure for them.
They are a vining plant, as you know, so they will need some sort of support. The stick supports that they came attached to can be replaced by a support of your choice. If you have a trellis picked out already, that will work great.
