What's growing on my Night Blooming Jasmine?

do a search here for corkscrew vine or snail vine. I think you'd be pleasantly surprised:)

Corkscrew vine or snail vine... got it.

I assume it is similar to the smell of NBJ? Question is, can this rookie get it into the ground successfully? haha

Thanks Babeegirl!

Wow! What an interesting thread reading it as different things play out.
Pretty much, I was thinking everything Ecrane did the whole way down based on the data of the day.
Each place is different, including the garden down the block, so I'll provide some info from my garden, and then go from there.
When I think about it, all of the night jasmine I have gets no direct morning or afternoon sun. They thrive in a humus rich mulchy soil. I've never seen a NBJ get too much water, although I can not see how large the pot your plant is in, it appears that the pot is rather large to the size of the plant and may pose a segment of a multifaceted array of issues facing the plant simultaneously

In general, in weather over 75F they are not happy transplants in my garden, and will remain distressed up to 2 weeks. The warmer the temps, the more distressed it will look. 99% of the time they recover. All transplants are left in a recovery area which is shaded most of the day. It will need to be left alone for a while, but it should recover.
So, make sure it's in shade for several days.
As much as you want to do something for its distress, let it alone for a few days, but make sure it's moist, not dry. If possible, don't fertilze or put other things on it as it will only add to it's distress.
The photo here is of a NBJ that I grew from a cutting about 3 inches long. It looked pretty terrible for several weeks, but as you can see, it eventually snapped out of it and is one of the best blooming NBJ I've ever had, it gets covered with the blooms.
And finally...if the little bugger croaks, I'll send you another, I pull them out of my garden like weeds.!
Rj

G'day Rj! Thanks very much for weighin' in! I really appreciate it.

To answer your question, it is planted in a 16" pot. Please let me know if that is or is not an appropriate size for it. (You referenced "issues" due to size of pot). I put it in a 16" because I thought I was going to be forced to grow it in a pot forever, and as I write this, I am still not convinced otherwise.

Okay mate, so let me get this perfectly straight.

Your NBJs are planted where they only get late afternoon sun. If transplanted in temps higher than 75 degrees, yours look pretty shattered for a couple of weeks, but if they are allowed to ride it out, 99% of the time they will come back.

My question to you is this:

At what size do you recommend planting this thing into the yard? It's about 18" now, although it's been through hell and back.

Should I pick a place in my lawn that has only late afternoon sun and plant it there, or plant it in a full sun location and construct a shade to cover it until it snaps out of it? Will it be able to tolerate full sun after it gets established? The reason I ask is, the only real place on my property that doesn't get a LOT of sun is on the west side of my house, where many large trees in the wooded lot next door shade the whole side of the house and yard. So I am afraid it's going to have to be full sun, or full shade pretty much. My lot is very vacant of large trees as it is a new home. I have three 15 foot Live Oak trees in the back lawn which do not provide any shade due to their maturity and low foliage.

Will the NBJ grow in full shade? If so, I will plant it on the west side of the house, no problem. I heard it requires sun to produce flowers, and thus scent though.

I will definitely take you up on your offer to send me one or two cuttings should this one die off. I have a fair amount of cash in this plant, and a LOT of time and stress. haha. Gardening was supposed to be GOOD for my BP the doctor said. Mmmmm... not so much.

Thanks for helping me to try to make sense of all this.

Cheers,

Mac

Babeegirl:

I am reading that the corkscrew vine is quite invasive. As in "problem child invasive".

Do you have trouble containing yours?

I need some fairly low-maintenance options if possible.

How do yours behave?

Mac

we'll see once I get the seeds to sprout! but then again, I'm in Kansas so it's probably not as invasive here as it would be in Florida. I plan on putting mine in a container so I can bring it inside during the winter. Aren't those gorgeous blooms though! I'm used to problem children too:) with a dog that thinks he's a digging machine and a kleptomaniac cat named Nitwit the Terrible, life is never normal.

Sounds like a fun household. And yes... the blooms are indeed amazing.

Know anything about pot sizes?

Trying to calculate the size pot I have the NBJ in. It's 19" across at top, 10" across at bottom and 15 inches high.

I am coming up with a 9 gallon pot.

Concur?

Most of my MBJ's are in some shade during the day, getting some morning sun and some afternoon sun. Those are the main ones, having said that they are in every conceivable location through out the garden except..in full sun. The gardens in front have more sun, but still has late afternoon shade. The back gardens are under a canopy of various large tree's from my place and the surrounding neighbors.

re the pot, it's best only to pot up a size or 2, a guideline I learned the hard way to be sure, as I use to pot up way too much. It's hard to say, since I'm not sure what the soil was, and the drainage material used. But generally speaking even with good drainage material too big of a pot can pretty much drown your plant.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=6438473 this is the latest picture? It looks pretty good to me, especially for NBJ. My experience is that most of the time the nbj will exhibit distress most of the time after transplanting. I have several plants like that.., like the clerodendrum bungei. It will wilt and look like death during the day and perk back up at night..it does that for a couple of weeks before it's happy again, but it always pulls through.

I think your experiencing the value of keeping a new plant in a pot for a while, because it is a good way to test locations for it. I'm doing that with a couple of plants right now. In Houston I never test anything in the full sun unless I'm absolutely sure I've seen it grow somewhere else in the neighborhood in full sun. I will pick a location and let it stay there for about a week, and you can tell if it wants more, or less...same with watering..sometimes I'll have to move a plant to an area that I water less if it's distressed because of too much water. I do the same thing in the garden beds too..Right now I'm testing 3 plants in pots that I want to plant in that location of the garden bed, so far so good on a couple, but the jury still out on the 3rd.
I think Ecrane offered some good advice about aclimation. Considering the plant has switched from inside to out, in the ground and out, and in a pot ...the best thing for it now is "recovery"- Pick a nice quiet shady place with some morning sun..and leave it for a week. After that...when it's recovered..acclimation....The larger the plant gets the more tolerant it can be of conditions. Think about a 2 step method to planting it where you want. Chances are in Florida or S. Texas planting a small plant in full sun with little relief is putting it at a disadvantage.
lol..I'm blah blah blahing! This link is a bit technical to read, but it is very interesting about drainage in pots, from a DG member..this is the link to it.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=1608726
Rj

not sure...I'm not that technical. I'm more the type to get a 9 gallon pot, put it next to it and say "yep, that looks about right".

LOL..yep, that's how I did it too. It seems logical, leave a lot of room to grow!

Rj: Thanks very much once again. I appreciate the info.

I guess I will have to just leave it in the pot and give it an hour of EARLY morning sun, say 8 am - 9 am, then move it under my front porch to see what it will do.

Today, it was very overcast here, so it wilted over just from the temperature alone, (which was 80 degrees) and or the humidity of 68%. It received ZERO direct sunlight today and still started to wilt within an hour. I can only hope you are correct in saying that it will crash and burn, but then come out of the ashes stronger than ever. It won't be easy to watch I must say.

I trust you will send me some of your "weeds" should this one meet it's demise. haha.

Thanks again for the recommendations, mate. Indeed appreciated by this rookie.

Mac

By the way, my pot is19" across at top, 10" across at bottom and 15 inches high.

I am coming up with a 9 gallon pot.

Guess that is too big? Maybe I should downsize the pot? If so, any recommendations for soil? Please include brand, mix, etc.

Mac

At this point, it's potted, -my recommendation would be to let it recover, keeping in the back of your mind what items might contribute to a deteriorating plant.

LOL..you know what I had to do and still do. I have an area, call the "Forget about it" area. It's a shelf in the back of the garden out of my eyesite. It has a lot of shade, and when I've done more dammage than good to a plant trying to make it better, I take it to that area and leave it for a few days. Amazingly, most of the time I check back there week or two later and the plant is doing way better than when I was fussing over it.

I make my own potting soil..so..think drainage, yet some moisture retention.

When dealing with plants, I coined a phrase that I have to tell myself a million times..and you won't go wrong...----- "In the plant world, A little, is A lot!"

There's definitely something weird going on with this plant, I've found NBJ to be very tough and resilient, not even a lot of transplant shock when I've planted mine in the garden. The only other thing I can think of is I wonder if it's got badly damaged roots, maybe from overwatering at some point in the past? A plant that doesn't have enough roots is going to tend to wilt like that much more easily than a plant with a root system that's proportional to its top growth. If you're going to repot it in some better potting mix anyway take a look at the size and condition of the rootball when you transplant it--if you're seeing a lot of brown/black mushy roots that's probably what's going on.

I find it tough and resilient too, but mine show distress most of the time when transplanted..even the ones that I baby the roots on...and it could be that they are wimps because they get a lot of shade..but they always recover. This is a perfect example of what I was saying earlier that one gardener experiences somethings differently just down the street.

I have experienced this almost exactly with a toad lily that I purchased last year. It was just really temperamental. I think I might have let it dry out and then over watered it. Well it pretty much fizzled and then I planted the roots and it's coming back like gangbusters this year. I'm not an expert but maybe risk letting it just do its thing. I would put it in a shady spot and give it a little time.

ECrane: Last transplant I did which was a couple of days ago, to rid the pot of the cow manure compost, the roots looked good. White, stringy, and looking healthy. No brown or black mush whatsoever. This was also the same time I held the plant in my hand and turned it upside down and sprayed the little darling with Neem oil to rule out Spider mites as many had suggested. I put an inch of pea gravel in the bottom of the pot, then replanted it in Hyponex potting soil. (I also found out today through some Internet research that this is not good soil either. See my post above about this if you haven't already). I too may start making my own.

The CRAZY thing is, is that this plant does well indoors in the 78 degree AC under the Ecobulb, so I think that should effectively rule out a root issue, wouldn't you? I am asking sincerely, because as you know, I am the "greenest" green-thumb wannabe here. It's JUST when I try to put it outside that it throws a tantrum. Bloody hell, man.

So, I have resolved to do as many have suggested. Take a chance on mother nature. I am going to leave this plant be. I am going to put it out in an hour per day of early morning sun, and then move it to a shaded spot in the yard, which will most likely be on or near the west side of the yard under the huge Southern Live Oak and Pine tree mix that is in the lot next to me. It will not be getting much if any sunlight after this one hour in the morning I have it on my patio. I am also going to stop watering it until the soil dries out some. The pot doesn't drain when I water the plant at all, so I think Rj may be onto something. I think I have too much soil and not enough plant. STILL - That doesn't explain why it does so well indoors under a CFL bulb and not outside where it belongs. Wimp indeed. SPOILED ROTTEN I'll say.

I will let it be. Sink or swim.

I will look at it everyday, but that is it. I won't touch it.

It's up to the garden gnome to save it, I guess. :)

Will post progress and photos a couple of times daily. Should be quite the drama. Tune in and turn on, mates!

By the way.. here is the up to the minute photo of the problem child taken just ten minutes ago, (which is approximately 11 hours after being back inside the house under the ecobulb). Going to turn out the light now and let it sleep. It's got a big day tomorrow. Thanks a million, everyone!

G'night from LBK!

Sorry.... this might work better!

Or not...

Having a pot that is too large for the plant does make it easier to overwater it, but I can't figure out why it only has symptoms when it's outside--if it was getting too much water because the pot was too big it would be showing symptoms no matter where you put it. And going from 78 degrees inside to 80 degrees outside in the shade shouldn't stress it, that just seems really weird to me. If you had taken it from the house and transplanted it in to the garden with those conditions then I could see that it could be suffering from transplant shock, but carrying it outside in the pot shouldn't do that.

I think you've got a good plan on stopping babying it and see what happens. But if it doesn't make it, don't give up on NBJ altogether, I'd suggest trying again with another one. They're definitely not all this temperamental!

G'day all!

Well, this morning at 8 am I put the NBJ outdoors into early morning sunshine for 1 hour. The weather conditions were:

64 degrees F
87% Humidity
Wind NNW @ 5 mi/hr
UV 0/16

Checked back on it at 9 am and all looked fine. Here is the 9 am photo.

At 9 am, after the one hour of sunlight, I moved the plant to the west side of the house and placed it into full shade. (Didn't want to push it with too much sun too fast).

9 am conditions were:

68 degrees F
Humidity 74%
Winds NW @ 6 mph
UV 1/16

Below is the 9 am photo just BEFORE moving it to the west side of the house. Still looking good. :)

Above is same photo as previous posted, sorry.

Here is the 10 am photo taken on the west side of the house after one hour in the shade.

Conditions were:

73 degrees F
61% humidity
Winds NW @ 5 MPH
*Note: UV in full sun is reported at 4/16. UV obviously not a factor.

So, the plant faired okay until I went out to check it at 3pm. I found it to be in direct sunlight - (thought that side of the house did not get any sunlight until 4:30 or so, but I was wrong). Some wilting noted, but not bad. The UV index was really high today, (15 out of 16) so I am attributing the wilt today to the sun exposure. Conditions at 3 pm were:

80 degrees F
Humidity 45%
Wind WNW @ 7, gusts to 14.
UV 14/16

The same conditions were present at 2pm, and there was no wilt noticed at that time. (It was still in full shade).

Odd thing is, this thing wilted like mad the other day when it was overcast!

Here is the slight wilt photo taken at 3 pm.

I have moved it back under the shade so we shall see if it recovers of crashes.

I promise after today, I will stop obsessing about this thing. I am just going to leave it is in the full shade and leave it alone. Will report back when it croaks and/or turns the corner and begins to grow. It hasn't grown at all since I have owned it.

Thanks again to all.

Mac

Glad to hear it's handling the outdoors a little better--hopefully it'll turn out to be a good plant after all!

It's strange, all of mine get wilty everytime I transplant, and there's been a few. I was ripping them out of the ground this morning..they're everywhere

Rj: With so many NBJs on your property, the fragrance has to be pretty overwhelming when they bloom, yeah?

Thanks Ecrane3. I sure hope it pulls through. Next challenge, is (when it is ready), transitioning it from pure potting soil into the extremely sandy soil I have here. I would say my "dirt" is 70% sand or perhaps even greater.

I'll be looking for some pointers when it comes time from both of you guys!

Thanks for being so awesome.

Cheers,

Mac

UGH!!!

Just peeked out at the NBJ, and it's wilting pretty badly. Leaves have shrunk in size and the plant's branches are pretty much hanging.

It's 80 degrees again today, and it's been in the shade all but for the hour between 8 and 9 am, but the humidity is really low today (35%) - which is UNHEARD OF here to my knowledge for this time of year.

Not sure if the low humidity is causing it, but I am not touching it. I am resolved to leaving this thing be. Sink or swim.

Rj, I hope you're right and this thing snaps out of it.

Hope everybody's having a good Earth Day 2009.

Cheers,

Mac

This message was edited Apr 22, 2009 12:04 PM

It will...if the pot is very wet, sometimes I will take a thin chopstick size stick and poke holes outside the root area, it aerates the roots...
Yes, the night jasmine can give a headache the scent becomes so strong with multiple plants blooming at the same time. (that's me, can't speak for anyone else).

Today's presentation... pretty sad.

It doesn't look too bad. The new growth looks somewhat perky in the picture and the browning on the ends of the leaves is probably from over watering at some point or low humidity (from being inside with air conditioning?), maybe the wilting and the brown tips are two separate issues. The wilting is from the heat and sun and the brown ends are from being inside or over watered. Also I was told that once the leaves begin die at the ends the leaf will continue to die and there is nothing you can do to save it. Just trim of the brown so that it doesn't look so bad. I have a feeling your little guy just needs some time to figure out how to be outside. Greenhouse grown plants can be so pampered that they don't have the thick skin required to be outside. Sometimes they just can't adjust quickly enough and die, but yours doesn't look like that is going to happen. Part of gardening for me is being ok with letting nature take its coarse. Attrition is part of the process. Particularly in the beginning. This said, yours looks ok. I would go tossing it in the compost just yet. We've had a heat wave this past week and my new bleeding hearts just bit the dust : ( they should come back next year though, i hope. Good luck. If it doesn't work, try again during a cooler season and purchase from a different source.

Krikey! I am putting my faith in your guys' knowledge about plants and I am hoping this recovers, but it's been brutally hot today.

If ya ask me.... by looking at the 3pm presentation, I am concerned it's about to kick the bucket.

Pessimistic, yet hoping I am wrong. :)

Cheers,

Mac

Yeah, it's actually looking pretty good to me too.

maybe this one just likes shade and some jasmines do like moist soil. maybe this one is one of them.

G'day mates! Okay... we're just not turning the corner. Something tells me I have a problem below the dirt. I am guessing it is root rot or something. The soil is still as wet as the day I put it outside and "forgot about it".

Take a gander at this action...

I'm voting for a dig up, root inspection, and a replant into dry indigenous soil. Any comments before I do such?

Happy Saturday!

Mac

The soil does look wet and the pot is too large for the plant as I think someone else pointed out a while back. I'm also curious what kind of soil you have in the pot now--it doesn't look quite like my potting mix does so I'm wondering if it's garden soil instead of container mix? Garden soil is too heavy and doesn't drain as well as soil-less potting mix so it's not good to use it in containers. If you're planning to keep it in a pot for a while still, I would get some good potting mix and scale down to a pot that's a more appropriate size for the plant.

I have it planted in 100% Hyponex Potting Soil. No additives, no fertilizer, no compost.

I have recently read that Hyponex isn't worth a darn however, so I will never buy it again.

Think I should dig it up and give it a shot in drier sandy soil?

Thanks for responding. Hope you have a good weekend. How's the weather in the east bay?

I would buy good quality container mix. I would NOT use garden soil, regardless of whether it's sandy or not. I use Miracle Gro potting mix, I'm sure there are better brands out there but it's always worked OK for me and is fairly readily available. And you also need a smaller pot, that is very important as well. If the pot is too large, you make it way too easy to overwater your plants.

Does this thing look salvageable to you? I mean, I am almost ready to throw in the towel and try to get another one and start over. I can use Miracle Grow potting mix then and have a better shot, hopefully. Do you put ANYTHING else in the mix, (such as fertilizer or compost) or go striaght out of the bag?

Also, do you put pea gravel or anything in the bottom of your pots for drainage?