Miniature shrub for a small garden - false jasmine or strawberry mock-orange
When we use the word jasmine, most of us imagine tall bushes with fragrant white flowers. However, among garden jasmines there are very compact species that are suitable for growing in small areas. If the garden is of limited size, but you really want to have such a plant in your possession, you can plant a strawberry mock-orange.
What does a shrub look like?
Strawberry chubushnik is one of the most compact forms - its total height averages up to 1.5. The real name of the species sounds like "small-leaved mock-orange", and the synonym "strawberry" he received for the odor uncharacteristic for this species of plants - its flowers emit a sweet and heady aroma of strawberries (strawberries).
Small-leaved chubushnik is characterized by slow growth - the annual growth is no more than 7 cm.
This variety of garden jasmine looks very beautiful, because the diameter of its dense crown is almost equal to the height of the bush. Its branches are erect, brown-red in color, but under the weight of a large number of small leaves they slightly droop to the ground. It differs from other types of chubushniks in small leaves, up to 2 cm in length, with sharp tips. The reverse side of the leaf is pubescent. See photo jasmine shrub!
In the third year of life chubushnik blooms in small, white and fragrant inflorescences. Flowering lasts 3 weeks.
Varieties of small-leaved jasmine
On the basis of the strawberry mock-orange, breeders, by crossing it with other varieties, bred many hybrids, which were transferred to the compact size and characteristic smell of the plant. Among them, it is worth noting varieties:
- Mont Blanc;
- Snow avalanche;
- Junnat;
- Ermine mantle;
- Avalanche;
- Moonlight.
Growing features
Strawberry garden jasmine prefers sunny locations and fertile soil. For planting, you need to pick up a well-lit corner in an area where there are no drafts. You can place the bush under the protection of tall trees or buildings. Humus should be added to the planting hole, and some sand should be added to clay soils.
When planting a seedling, the root collar should be deepened a couple of centimeters - this way it will bush better.
The disadvantages of the variety include not very high frost resistance - at a temperature of 15 degrees below zero, the shoots freeze slightly. For this reason, false strawberry jasmine needs sanitary pruning in the spring to remove frost-damaged branches.
In August, you can pinch the tips of the shoots so that they stop growing, and the wood has time to harden before the onset of cold weather.
I bought this cute jasmine in a pot as a room one, flowers with the aroma of strawberries delighted in the window, but then I decided to plant it in the country house and there it grew up to the waist, a lush bush with small leaves, but it began to bloom less often and freeze the top, no matter how you cover it, but even without flowers, it is beautiful, delicate, straight thin twigs, unusual.