Pink Saturday - Jasmine

Pink Saturday - Beverly, at the blog "How Sweet the Sound" hosts Pink Saturday. Let the color pink inspire your creativity!

Here in Southern California we are fortunate that we can grow jasmine. This is Jasminium polyanathum, also known as Pink Jasmine and Winter Jasmine. Its pink buds open into small white fragrant flowers in February.

I grow a jasmine vine on the wooden structure that screens my trash cans up by the curb. I figure having a fragrant plant helps disguise the garbage both visually and - well - in an olfactory way.

This plant is in bloom on a fence among the shops and cafes along Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, CA. It foams and burgeons over the fence, reaching out its fragrant tendrils to passersby.

In colder zones, you can grow pink jasmine as an indoor potted plant - it works well as a hanging basket - in a cool room, where it will get some night-time chill.


This is not the only Jasmine you can grow. The genus Jasminium has over 200 species of fragrant vines and shrubs.

Jasminium sambac, commonly named Arabian Jasmine, is the jasmine used to make jasmine tea. It has broad evergreen leaves, and there is a double-flowered version called "Duke of Tuscany" that is widely cultivated. Arabian Jasmine is the national flower of the Philippines.

In addition to the number of Jasmine species, there are also many fragrant plants of other genuses that have the common name of Jasmine - Trachelospermum is called Star Jasmine and is frequently grown as an outdoor ornamental in moderate climates.

Night-blooming Jasmine is really the genus Cestrum, native to Central America, India andMexico.

Even the fragrant shrubby plant we know as Gardenia - Gardenia jasminoides - is often called "Cape Jasmine" in certain parts of the country, particularly the South.

If you're a Jasmine lover, and you want to try a few species for your own gardens or homes, Logee's Tropical Plants is a wonderful mail-order nursery with a wide selection. Even if you're not in the market for Jasmines, their website and catalogs are good reading.