Hi, my name is Byron Martin, and today
we're going to be talking about 'Jasmine
polyanthum,' or the Winter Jasmine.
Right now, we are at the beginning of
March, and our plants are coming into full
bloom. The reason why they are flowering
is that they have been subjected to a
period of chill. And, that chill-period is
below 60 degrees; and above freezing. And
they, actually, can take a little bit
below freezing; but we never let them go
that far.
The key to flowering this jasmine is to
subject them to that cool period, for a
period of weeks. And, it's not just a short
dip. It has to be consistent;
night after night, they're dropping down--
this particular house we're in drops down
into the forties at night. And it happens
over a period of probably two or three
months. So, what we do with our Jasmines
is, we grow them during the summertime as
vegetative cuttings. They're potted into baskets,
or they can be trained on trellis. And
during the summertime, they're given
full sun... They're watered properly: meaning a
little dryness, and water is given to
them throughout the summertime...
Fertilized. And then, as we go into fall,
we try to subject them to that cool, that
comes along, as we go into October,
November, and December. And, if we have an
early fall, where the temperatures are
cool, and we protect them from the
freezing, the buds will form, even
before Christmas time. This year happened
to be one of those years, where we were able to
get our buds formed, even before
Christmas. We could see the little buds
forming on the tips. These plants, here,
are in full bud, right now, and the flowers.
But, the buds actually form at the leaf
axis. And, as you go into that chill-period,
you'll see these little shoots starting
to form, here, and then little buds
starting to form outside of that. The
important thing, when you're growing this
for flowers-- for winter flowers-- is not
to --once you see that initiation of bud-- not
to put them into heat. And, that heat, again,
would be temperatures above 60 at night.
Now, daytime temperatures, it
doesn't really matter too much; you're
going to get warm days in the greenhouse,
or even outside, in the fall. But, it's
that bringing the bud down, into that
cold temperature, and letting it rest there
for the night time, and then coming back
out of it. So, once you see bud formation,
you need to hold them in that cold until
the buds have really expressed themselves;
you're starting to see, actually, the forms
of bracts, and so on. And then, if you move
them into heat, that just forces the
flowering cycle. As far as fertilizer goes,
we use a balanced feed on them. And, once
we get into the cooler temperatures of
fall, we discontinue feeding them. You can
actually get salt build-up if you
continued. And, they can't utilize it as
well under colder temperatures. As far as
pruning goes-- what we'll do with the
basket, like this, once it's finished
flowering-- this is about halfway through-- we'll
give it a really hard cut. We'll cut it
way down. Now, we will leave some stems on
it, and maybe a little bit of foliage,
but this whole plant will be brought
back to just the crook- the initial
branching structure that was there when
we started. This is a plant that's
going through its second year. So, it can go through
its third year with a good, hard cut, once
it's done flowering. Then you can cut it,
actually, during the summertime, if needed.
Generally, what we do is, we keep wrapping it
around itself, so it becomes this big
ball. But, you can do some pruning during
summertime. Just got to remember that, you
want, probably, by the time you get into July,
you want to stop that. And, you want to
let those branches, or leads, fill out--
because that's where your flowers are
going to form, as you go into fall. When
growing Jasmine polyanthum, you want to
make sure that you give it as maximum
amount of light as possible. And, even
during the wintertime. Now, this makes it
a little more challenging. But, even
during the wintertime, it wants to be in
a sunny window, or a sunny exposure, so that
the plant itself can continue growing and
continuing forming buds. It's not really a
shade-loving plant. They will grow in
lower light; they just don't flower as
well. So, the maximum amount of bloom
you're going to get out of them, is grown
under full light. Another interesting aspect
of this plant: if grown under very cold
temperatures, and very cold would be down
in the thirties at night. Under really
bright, sunny conditions, the buds
actually form pink, as before they come out, which
actually adds a little more color to it.
Because, you can see this plant is totally
white. And this was actually grown in this
greenhouse, where we didn't get quite that cold.
There's a little bit of information on
how to grow our Jasmine polyanthum.
It's actually a very vigorous, and easy
plant to grow. Just got to remember:
adjust your temperatures as you go into
fall. For more information, visit us at
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