I planted a tea olive few months ago and it is thriving, growing and blooming like gangbusters. I have heard how heavenly the fragrance of their tiny blooms can be, and planted it in close proximity to my deck along with half a dozen gardenias. The gardenias are also blooming heavily, and smell great! The tea olive blooms have no smell, except when I smash them between my fingers to release the fragrance. Is there something else I need to do or do I have a dud?
Tea Olive - no fragrance???
Mine I can't smell until I get up close to it--if you stick your nose by the flowers can you smell it? If not, then I wonder if you have the right plant or not, never heard of one of them not being fragrant or needing to smash the blooms to smell them. Although as I said with mine, I do have to stick my nose in the flowers to smell it much (I'm sure once it gets bigger and has more blooms it'll be better though)
the scent on mine is subtle, I have to get closer to enjoy it.
I have a huge osmanthus fragrans that is about 16' high and the fragrance is strong, but I think you can smell it from afar because there are so many blooms on it. I could see where if the plant were small, it would not be so obvious a scent
Well, I stuck my nose right in it and there's nothin'. Very dissapointing. :( I wonder if heat has anything to do with it. It's in a cooler part of the yard, maybe it needs to be in hot sunshine to release the fragrance. The gardenias are heavenly, though, and they are right next to it.
I think I've been able to smell mine even in the evenings when it's cooler, and I actually bought mine last year in the spring when it was still cold and it had a few blooms on it then and I definitely remember being able to smell it. Are you sure what you really have is Osmanthus fragrans? If you bought it from somewhere and it was just labelled as "tea olive" there's no telling for sure that it's actually the plant you thought it was, could be they use that common name to refer to a different plant. Or could have been totally mislabelled. I've never run across one of these that didn't smell, although I suppose it could be possible--if it's a cultivar that was bred to get great foliage or something some of the scent could have been lost somewhat along the way, but since everyone buys this because of its fragrance I can't imagine a hybrid that was lacking in scent would have actually made it into the trade!
Mine are very subtle. Sometimes I can smell them at a distance but not when I am up close. Sometimes they have blooms on them but no scent. I don't really care as long as I get a whiff every once in awhile. Size might be a factor. They are slow growing and more blooms = more scent. Give it time.
That's what was on the label, and it looks like all the pictures I have seen. Except the leaves are more leathery than lustrous. Maybe it just needs some TLC after living rootbound in a nursery container for Lord knows how long. Miracle it's blooming at all! I'll be going back to the place I got it the 22nd, so if it's not smellin' up the yard by then I'll ask them about it.
It does smell at night lol. This is so weird but a friend and I were walking past mine last night, and she was talking and interupted herself to say " oh is that a mock orange blooming-I love those" and I could smell it too. I looked and there was just a few blooming-so you should be able to smell it with only a few blooms on it.
Tigerlily123
Mine is more fragrant at night. I don't know why but it is. Try smelling it then.
Jeri
Is it humidity related? I have 11 of them in different places on my property - they flower in April & are highly fragrant - it is strongest in the AM. I am just east of Seattle & we have that moist air (yeah, it's called RAIN) so I wonder if that helps carry the scent...
Humidity might help, but it's very dry here and I still have no trouble smelling it when it's in bloom.
We have osmanthus X fortunei UNC selection from the University of North Carolina Campus that is flowering now, It is so fragrant, poeple walking by are so surprised and wanting to know where the fragrance is from!
I am going to have to get another one. This one has been a disappointment. It was literally COVERED in blooms a few days ago and I went out several times at different times of the day and night, never could smell a thing. I so want to enjoy the fragrance I hear so much about, so I will probably just go to a local nursery and pick up one that is blooming so I can smell it first. LOL, I'm not taking any more chances.
You know, smelling the flowers first might be a good policy. My neighbor has a mock orange that has no fragrance at all. It looks like a mock orange but???? On the other hand he has a viburnum that I would kill for. He doesn't remember the name exactly and the nursery he ordered it from is no longer in business. I went out to a big local nursery and went around smelling the flowers in the viburnum section. Most had no fragrance at all. One smelled terrible!!! My neighbor said I could take cuttings of his, but I lost them. Next spring I'll use a fungicide.
Kaimei, how does the osmanthus x fortunei compare with your osmanthus fragrans auranticus. Size, cold tolerance, fragrance, etc. If you only had room for one which would you choose--I know this is subjective.
I'd assumed a tea olive was out of the question for me until I heard about auranticus.
Aurenticus has orange color flower, had a few flower, they are planted in our garden, very near each other, the flower is fragrant, but the flower only last a few days. After one week it was all gone. The UNC selection flowered a few weeks ago it is still in flower. People are still asking where is the fragrance from!
Flower is small. the ground is white with the flower.
Kai Mei
So I guess the osmanthus x fortunei would be a better choice. I seriously considered getting one several years ago, when I read the wonderful things Michael Dirr's Noble Plants website said about it. By the time I got around to ordering, that website had disappeared. Procrastination can be perilous.
Anyway, thank you Kei Mai for sharing your knowledge of these plants.