Fragrant White Tea Olive

Osmanthus fragrans

Plant Details

USDA Plant Hardiness Zones: 7b (7a?) to 10b Find Your Zone

Plant Type: Evergreen Flowering Shrub or Small Tree

Height at Maturity: 10-15′

Width at Maturity: 6-8′

Spacing: 5-6′ for solid hedges; 12′ or more for space between plants

Growth Habit / Form: Upright, Rounded

Growth Rate: Moderate, Fast

Flower Color: White

Flower Size: Tiny, 1/8″

Flowering Period: Spring, Fall, Winter

Flower Type: Single, in clusters

Fragrant Flowers: Yes, extremely fragrant!

Foliage Color: Dark Green, Orange to Red new leaves

Fragrant Foliage: No

Berries: No

Berry Color: NA

Sun Needs: Full to Mostly Sun, Morning Sun With Afternoon Shade, Morning Shade with Afternoon Sun

Water Needs: Average, Very Low when established

Soil Type: Clay (Amended), Loam, Sandy, Silty

Soil Moisture / Drainage: Well Drained Moist to Dry when established

Soil pH: 5.5 – 6.5 (Acid to Slightly Acid)

Maintenance / Care: Average to Low

Attracts: Visual Attention

Resistances: Deer – more info, Disease, Drought, Dry Soil, Heat, Insect

Description

Producing an abundance of some of the most wonderfully fragrant flowers in existence, the Fragrant Tea Olive, Osmanthus fragrans, also called Sweet Olive, is an attractive large evergreen shrub or small tree that flowers on and off for up to 6 months out of the year! The flowers are tiny but boy do they pack a fragrant punch! All it takes is one Tea Olive to fill your front or backyard with a heavenly scent of sweet perfume. The scent is really indescribable. No other fragrant plant we know of smells like the Tea Olive. It’s just one of those things you have to experience for yourself. The flowers are produced in both spring and fall and during the winter whenever nighttime temperatures are between about 45 to 65 degrees. In our gardens here in north-central Georgia, the White Tea Olives blooms off and one for about 6 months out of the year, depending on the weather.

Landscape & Garden Uses

With and upright growth habit and rounded form 10 to 15 feet tall and 6 to 8 feet wide (depending on pruning), the White Tea Olive can be grown as a large shrub or small tree. As a shrub, its dense foliage makes it ideal for use as an evergreen hedge, privacy screen, or background in landscape borders or to frame corners or fill voids between widely-spaced windows in home foundation plantings. As it grows taller, which it does rather quickly, lower branches can be removed to a desired height to form a highly attractive focal point specimen tree for use in sunny to partially shaded landscape borders and home foundation plantings. There’s no need to plant this one near windows as one plant can fill a front or back yard with sweet aroma. A fine addition to fragrance gardens, white theme gardens, Asian gardens and Xeriscape gardens (low water needs).

Suggested Spacing: 5 to 6 feet apart for a solid hedge; 12 feet or more apart for space between plants

Note: For our customers who live and garden North of USDA Cold Hardiness Zone 7b, where this Tea Olive variety is not reliably winter hardy, you’ll be happy to know it can be grown in containers that can be brought indoors during winter and placed back outside when temperatures warm up in spring.

Growing Preferences

The White Tea Olive is very easy to grow in most any average, moist but well-drained soil and full sun to part shade. We suggest at least 5 hours of direct sunlight per day or all-day lightly filtered sun for best flowering. As with many other plants, a constantly soggy or wet soil can be problematic. Exceptionally drought tolerant when established. Over decades, we’ve seen no insect or disease problems and deer won’t touch it.

Helpful Articles

Click on a link below to find helpful advice from our experts on how to plant and care for Tea Olive shrubs and trees.

How To Plant A Tea Olive

How To Fertilize A Tea Olive

How To Prune Prune A Tea Olive Shrub Or Tree

Plant Long & Prosper!

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The huge plants were packaged so well that no leaf dropped, and the soil was intact. They have grown beautifully. I doubt I will buy online elsewhere. Wilson Brother is hard to beat if you want a very healthy plant!———————————Wow! We are so glad you are pleased and we hope you enjoy them for years to come! Thanks for the kind words and great review! 🙂 Beth Steele | WBG

My bushes arrived on time and healthy. They have only been planted for a while but seem to be doing well.———————————We are so glad you are pleased and we hope you enjoy them for years to come! Thanks for the great review! 🙂 Beth Steele | WBG

They came safely packaged, no damage, healthy looking, a couple of them even came with some blooms on them. They are growing nicely. Smell wonderful. Can’t wait for them to grow into my garden. Highly recommended. Zone 8B————————We are so glad you are pleased and we hope you enjoy it for years to come! Thanks for the great review! 🙂 Beth Steele | WBG

I thought I would take the time to tell you how happy I am to have found your site and store. Your care in packaging my plants as well as the health and quality of those plants was just spectacular. Your pricing was very reasonable if I dare say economical for the fact that I would not find the type or quality of plant at my local garden store. I have a few high-end nurseries in my area, but the prices are outrageous and nowhere within my budget.
I am a novice gardener and I just try to follow instructions and hope for the best. At first, I thought the plants might be stressed or shocked. There were some dropped leaves, some weird spots and l was uneasy. But your planting instructions were wonderful and all of your plants are happily now showing signs of budding. The Camellias are tucked near an east facing tree where I think they’ll get just enough shelter and filtered morning light. The Sweet Olive are staged 5 feet apart in my south facing front yard.
I may not know much about gardening, but I’ve seen enough to know when a company has integrity and puts their heart and soul into a product. For that reason, you have a customer for life!
Kind regards!————————–We are so glad you are pleased! Thanks for the awesome review! Beth | WBG

I’m excited to smell this to see what all the fuss is about! Hopefully I’ll get some flowers soon. I like that this is an evergreen broadleaf tree that is nice & tidy. I already have plans to buy a few more if I like the scent. I’m pretty rural & don’t have a lot of options for different varieties of trees & plants where I live. I’ve ordered trees, berry bushes, & plants online for a few years now & have ordered twice from Wilson Bros. Both times I’ve been pleased with the packaging & the health of the trees. My husband and I will always look for trees from Wilson Bros first.———————————We are so glad you are pleased! Thanks for the great review! Beth | WBG