The September fragrance of tea olives are unmistakable in the garden, when the flower season gets started here at JLBG. Open house visitors are always shocked at the incredible sweet aroma from these amazing Asian (China, Japan, Korea, and Thailand) native evergreens. Below is our 23 year old plant of Osmanthus fragrans var. aurantiacus. I had hoped AI would have devised a way to share the fragrance through your computer, but alas, not yet.
Osmanthus fragrans cultivation has been documented for 2,500 years in China, but it only made it into western horticulture (Europe) in the late 1700s. According to our friend, Dr. Dave Creech, who knows these things, there are 175 named cultivars grown in China, where these revered shrubs are planted by the millions. In the wild, they can reach 20′ tall after many generations, but in the garden, a height of 10-15′ tall can be expected after several decades.
Tea olive has been used culinarily to brew Osmanthus tea, to make Osmanthus jam, and a number of other food products. In addition to the delicious taste, tea olive is highly bioactive, having been used medicinally to treat pain, rheumatism, as well as coughs and bad breath. Recent research has show it to also have anti-diabetic and anti-cancer properties. Not to diminish those uses, but for us, the ornamantal value tops the list.
tea, not tee. An incredibly fragrant plant!
I’m in Minnesota. Will this grow in clay soil ph 7? how about zone 5A? I want one. Fragrance seems to be an afterthought in a lot of plant breeding these days so the sweet smelling plants are always a draw for me
Sadly, it’s only winter hardy from Zone 7a/7b and warmer.