Fall Plant Sale Preview 2019: Fragrant Tea Olive

Osmanthus fragrans v. aurantiacus 'Beni Kin Mokusei'.
Photo courtesy of Nurseries Caroliniana Inc.

By Katherine Hale

The first sign of fall isn’t shorter days or cooler nights—it’s the apricot-like scent wafting through the air as the fragrant tea olives bloom. Hailing from China, these evergreen shrubs boast hundreds of tiny flowers that pack a big punch, filling the air with massive quantities of perfume. When the season peaks here at Duke Gardens (it’s starting now!), you can follow your nose to the tea olives lining the paths near the lower parking lot and in the Historic Gardens, long before you see them.

The plant’s official name—Osmanthus fragrans v. aurantiacus—is a lengthy one, but don’t let that intimidate you. The first three words are a fancy way of saying it’s an especially fragrant tea olive with orange flowers in place of the usual white. What makes 'Beni Kin Mokusei' so special is that its blooms are much deeper orange than the garden variety auranticus, so much so that they appear almost red in certain lights.

The late horticulturist J.C. Raulston of N.C. State University once saw a sprig of ‘Beni Kin Mokusei’ in a flower arrangement during a visit to a Korean temple and fell in love; he reportedly claimed he would have been willing to risk jail to acquire a specimen of his own. Fortunately, you don’t have to go to such lengths—this variety has now been introduced to the United States and will be available for purchase at Duke Gardens’ Fall Plant Sale on Sept. 28, and the members-only preview sale and dinner on Sept. 27.

What to do with ‘Beni Kin Mokusei’ once you’ve purchased it? The possibilities are only limited by your imagination. Take advantage of its heavenly scent and plant it in a sunny place near a porch or patio or anywhere you care to linger on cool autumn evenings. Or use it as a privacy hedge or to line outdoor paths, as we do with the Osmanthus at Duke Gardens. Tea olives are deer- and disease-resistant, and incredibly low-maintenance once established, fading into the background until the fall. You’ll wonder how you ever managed to live without them.

Read more about Osmanthus at Duke Gardens in this 2016 blog post.

FALL PLANT SALE DETAILS:
Date: Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019
Time: 8 a.m.-noon
Member benefits: Duke Gardens members get 10% off all purchases, plus access to the members-only previews sale and dinner from 5-7 p.m. on Sept. 27, and a full list of plants in advance, plus staff recommendations. Join online or on site.
Parking: Free.
Pets not permitted. Please see Duke Gardens' pets policy here.
Wagons + boxes: Our supply is limited; please bring your own if possible, and you'll have more time to spend gathering beautiful plants.
Your support helps Duke Gardens to provide summer internships to aspiring horticulturists from across the nation.
Please see our event page for more information, and we'd love for you to spread the word by sharing the event on Facebook and inviting your friends.
Thank you!

Fall Plant Sale Preview: Fragrant Tea Olive

Osmanthus fragrans v. aurantiacus 'Beni Kin Mokusei'.
Photo courtesy of Nurseries Caroliniana Inc.

By Katherine Hale

The first sign of fall isn’t shorter days or cooler nights—it’s the apricot-like scent  wafting through the air as the fragrant tea olives bloom. Hailing from China, these evergreen shrubs boast hundreds of tiny flowers that pack a big punch, filling the air with massive quantities of perfume. When the season peaks here at Duke Gardens (it’s starting now!), you can follow your nose to the tea olives lining the paths near the lower parking lot and in the Historic Gardens, long before you see them.

The plant’s official name—Osmanthus fragrans v. aurantiacus—is a lengthy one, but don’t let that intimidate you. The first three words are a fancy way of saying it’s an especially fragrant tea olive with orange flowers in place of the usual white. What makes 'Beni Kin Mokusei' so special is that its blooms are much deeper orange than the garden variety auranticus, so much so that they appear almost red in certain lights.

The late horticulturist J.C. Raulston of N.C. State University once saw a sprig of ‘Beni Kin Mokusei’ in a flower arrangement during a visit to a Korean temple and fell in love; he reportedly claimed he would have been willing to risk jail to acquire a specimen of his own.  Fortunately, you don’t have to go to such lengths—this variety has now been introduced to the United States and will be available for purchase at Duke Gardens’ Fall Plant Sale on Sept. 29.

What to do with ‘Beni Kin Mokusei’ once you’ve purchased it? The possibilities are only limited by your imagination. Take advantage of its heavenly scent and plant it in a sunny place near a porch or patio or anywhere you care to linger on cool autumn evenings. Or use it as a privacy hedge or to line outdoor paths, as we do with the Osmanthus at Duke Gardens. Tea olives are deer- and disease-resistant, and incredibly low-maintenance once established, fading into the background until the fall. You’ll wonder how you ever managed to live without them.

Read more about Osmanthus at Duke Gardens in this 2016 blog post.

FALL PLANT SALE DETAILS:
Date: Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018
Time: 9 a.m.-noon
Member benefits: Duke Gardens members get 10% off all purchases, plus access to the members-only previews sale from 8-9 a.m., and a full list of plants in advance! Join online or on site.
Parking: Free.
Pets not permitted. Please see Duke Gardens' pets policy here.
Wagons + boxes: Our supply is limited; please bring your own if possible, and you'll have more time to spend gathering beautiful plants.
Your support helps Duke Gardens to provide summer internships to aspiring horticulturists from across the nation.
Please see our event page for more information, and we'd love for you to spread the word by sharing the event on Facebook and inviting your friends.
Thank you!

Fall Plant Sale Preview: Wintersweet

Wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox).
Photo by Paul Jones.

By Paul Jones
Curator, Culberson Asiatic Arboretum

To be precocious is to develop earlier than might be expected. In the garden this adjective may be used to describe certain plants that come into flower while Mother Nature is still enforcing the chill of mid-winter.

Witchhazels (Hamamelis spp.) are well-known shrubs that often display this tendency. Japanese apricot (Prunus mume), another. A less familiar shrub, but one that is certainly a favorite among those privy to its charms, is Chimonanthus praecox, or wintersweet.

As the scientific name implies, wintersweet is precocious (the Latin praecox meaning early ripening). And as the common name implies, the flowers are sweetly fragrant—in the winter. And fragrant it is! As one person’s comments I read about this species put it, “there is truly nothing like it.” Just delightful.

Wintersweet is native to China and belongs to the plant family Calycanthaceae—the same family that our prized spring flowering native sweetshrub (aka sweet Betsy or Carolina allspice) Calycanthus floridus belongs to. Wintersweet has translucent multi-petaled yellow flowers, about an inch or so in diameter when fully opened, produced in great abundance. Typically the flowers remain unscathed through some pretty cold temperatures.

Winter flowering shrubs are often intensely fragrant, presumed so because of the scarcity of pollinators during the cold. Perhaps humans are displacing hibernating insects as the primary pollinator of wintersweet as we greedily bury our noses deep into flower after flower, savoring its most glorious scent.

We'll have wintersweet and more at our Fall Plant Sale on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017, from 8 a.m. to noon. Hope to see you here!

This plant highlight originally appeared in Duke Gardens' Flora magazine.

Fall Plant Sale details:

Date: Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017
Time: 8 a.m.-noon
Membership benefit: Duke Gardens members get 10% off! Join online or on site.
Parking: Free.
Pets not permitted
Wagons + boxes: Our supply is limited; please bring your own if possible, and you'll have more time to spend gathering beautiful plants.
Please see our event page for more information, and we'd love for you to spread the word on Facebook. Thank you!

Fall Plant Sale Preview: Climbing Aster

By Jason Holmes
Curator, Doris Duke Center Gardens

I am always interested in cool climbers, and climbing aster, known to us botanical types as Ampelaster carolinianus, is one of the coolest I know.

The prefix ampel means climbing; thus we have the genus “climbing aster.” This deciduous semi-woody plant grows long vine-like stems. These 6- to 8-foot-long sprawling stems may be attached to a trellis, arbors or fences, or allowed to ramble through shrubs. Unlike other vines, it has no way to attach itself, so it relies on whatever may be its closest garden companions.

Ampelaster is native to lowland marshes and moist areas throughout Florida and a few isolated coastal counties in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. Easily adaptable to our garden soils, this climber thrives in full sun and has grown magnificently wherever I have planted it.

Its best attribute is its striking floral display during the fall. Like clockwork, climbing aster is covered with clusters of 1-inch flowers in November. I often recall these beautiful blooms because Ampelaster is one of the few plants blooming when leaves are changing to their autumn colors. The flowers have pinkish to purple ray petals that radiate out from the vivid yellow-orange disk flowers in the center. I have found this species to be a great late season nectar source for monarch butterflies and other native pollinators.

We'll have climbing aster and more at our Fall Plant Sale on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017, from 8 a.m. to noon. Hope to see you here!

This plant highlight originally appeared in Duke Gardens' Flora magazine.

Fall Plant Sale details:

Date: Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017
Time: 8 a.m.-noon
Membership benefit: Duke Gardens members get 10% off! Join online or on site.
Parking: Free.
Pets not permitted
Wagons + boxes: Our supply is limited; please bring your own if possible, and you'll have more time to spend gathering beautiful plants.
Please see our event page for more information, and we'd love for you to spread the word on Facebook. Thank you!

Fall Plant Sale Preview: Musa velutina

Musa velutina. Photo by Jason Holmes.

By Jason Holmes
Doris Duke Center Gardens Curator

One of my absolute favorites among the hardy bananas is the Pink Velvet. From northeastern India, Musa velutina forms a stunning clump of large leaves that reach to 8 feet high. A spike of flowers develops atop the pseudostems, and by mid-summer the spike of flowers becomes a mass of attractive bright pink, velvety bananas. This is where the word “velutina” translates to “velvety banana.”

These bananas are very small and seedy, and I imagine that they would not provide a substantial source of calories. In November, the pink bananas burst open to reveal a white interior that from a distance makes them look like they are flowering again.

The Pink Velvet banana thrives in our heat and humidity and does well with good moisture and lots of sun or even the high canopy of trees. Though Musa velutina is hardy to zone 7b, it may be best protected with a pile of leaves during the winter.

The Pink Velvet banana is a true hardy tropical for the summer landscape and will leave many gardeners asking, “What’s that?” We'll have this gorgeous plant and more at our Fall Plant Sale on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017, from 8 a.m. to noon. Hope to see you here!

This plant highlight originally appeared in Duke Gardens' Flora magazine.

Fall Plant Sale details:

Date: Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017
Time: 8 a.m.-noon
Membership benefit: Duke Gardens members get 10% off! Join online or on site.
Parking: Free.
Pets not permitted
Wagons & boxes: Our supply is limited; please bring your own if possible, and you'll have more time to spend gathering beautiful plants.
Please see our event page for more information, and we'd love for you to spread the word on Facebook. Thank you!