Hi, my name is Byron Martin, here at
Logee's Greenhouses, and today, we're
going to be talking about Jasmines, in
particular, the Sambacs. Within the Sambac
group there are many, many, cultivars.
We have five of them here, that we
grow at Logee's. They're quite easy to
grow, and they are probably some of the
freest-flowering ones, particularly the
'Maid of Orleans,' but many of them are
very free-flowering. And they carry a very
strong Jasmine fragrance, particularly at
night. As I mentioned, the most famous of
them all is the 'Maid of Orleans,' which is
this, here, and you can see how prolific
the flowering is on it. That is probably
the freest-flowering of all, within the
group. One of the things about growing
this plant, in particular, is that, it
flowers, always off of the new shoots, as
they all do, but this one- every little
spur, a flower will come off of.
So in culturing it, they really like to
be pruned, and in that case, we just
simply shear back any long leads that are
coming off the plant, and it immediately
goes back into growth, and flowers form on
that new growth. All of them have that
tendency, the flowers always form on the
new growth, but some of them tend to be a
little more upright in their growth. This
is 'Grand Duke,' and there are several forms of
'Grand Duke.' This is one selection that is
more common in the trade; it's a lot
easier to flower and propagate than some
of the others. You can see the flowers
are very double, almost like carnations.
This one, actually, is starting to crest,
meaning, it's getting a thick, sort of a
sideways growth to it. This particular
variety-- all of them can be used as tea, but
this particular one is often-- the flowers
are picked in the evening and put into
water in the refrigerator overnight and
in the morning, you drink Jasmine water-- but all
of them can be used that way. 'Grand Duke'
is one that's often used for that. This
has a very upright habit to it; you can
see these leads are running up and they
will go, continue to go up, until they get
to a point where they flower. In terms of
culturing of them, if they get too long,
just prune them back. I mean,
it can-- it's a plant that can, actually,
get out of hand.
It doesn't have as much vigor,
in terms of growing throughout
the season, as the-- as 'Maid of Orleans'
does, so, it's more of a warm-day bloomer
than it is wintertime. We very seldom see
flowers in the wintertime here in Northeastern
Connecticut. Within that group,
there's also another double. This is sort
of almost the difference between the two.
This is one we call 'Flore Plena.' It has a
semi-double to double flower to it; a little
bit looser than 'Grand Duke;' an upright
habit, but it does flower very freely. It
is more of a summer-bloomer for us, but
it does flower a little bit freer than
'Grand Duke.' One other cultivar that we
grow is called 'Belle of India.' This is a
double form; you can see it's very, very loose in
its growth. This is probably-- I wouldn't say
weakest, but, it tends to be more seasonal
than any of the others-- really doesn't
like winter time here in the North and
pretty much slows down, on us, to a crawl,
or stops growing, even under warm
conditions. And then, in summertime, it
grows very vigorously. But, you can see it has
kind of a reaching habit to it; it kind
of-- more vining, than some of the others.
In terms of culture, they do have some
issues with root disease, so one
needs to make sure that there's some
dryness between waterings. They are
highly susceptible to spidermite, and
that's probably the biggest challenge
in growing them; you got really keep
your eye on that. When you see that
little puckering mark on the leaf, you
need to make sure you treat them, and
take care of that, and the neem oil works
very well, in terms of controlling that,
but you just gotta stay ahead of that.
As far as pruning goes-- this would be a good
example-- we could prune this back, but
you just simply need to take these--
regardless of the variety-- once it's done
its flowering cycle-- here's some flowers that
have finished blooming here-- and simply
just chop the plant back so that
it's headed down, like so. And then, this
is all going to-- this is all going to
break and it will fill out again, and
you're going to-- every time you do that,
as you prune, with most plants-- you're going to thicken it.
So, that creates a fuller specimen
over time, and it also-- you can contain it.
You could certainly take a Jasmine 'Maid
of Orleans,' like this, and you could hold it at,
I don't know, maybe a foot and a half
tall, permanently-- just by pruning it off,
letting it grow, pruning it off, letting it
grow-- so it can fit on a windowsill, or in
a limited space, if needed. As far as
fertilizer goes, they do benefit from
fertilizer. We feed them on a pretty much-
a continuous basis throughout the year,
as long as temperatures are above 60
degrees, where we grow most of our
Jasmines. Any balanced feed will work; you
can use a liquid feed, or you can top
dress, if needed, with organics or
granular slow-release. There are some
issues in the wintertime with iron
chlorosis-- that's interveinal lightness--
yellowing of the top growth-- that's
usually an iron problem. Generally, it's
more of a seasonal thing. You can ignore
it and they'll grow out of it, or if you
want, you can treat with iron chelate, and
that usually corrects the problem. As I
mentioned, there can be some issues with
root disease on these plants,
particularly in cold, wet, conditions.
Jasmine 'Belle of India' tends to be more
susceptible than the other varieties
that we grow. So thank you for watching
today. There's a little bit of
information on one of the easiest
Jasmines to grow-- the Jasmine sambac-- and
the most rewarding. If you'd like more
information, you can find us at Logees.com
