A Complete Guide to the Latest Cultivation Methods for Orange Jessamine

Orange jessamine (Aglaia odorata) is an evergreen shrub or small tree belonging to the genus Aglaia in the Meliaceae family, also known as zhulan, mizilan, shulan, yuzailan and so on. Orange jessamine is native to China's Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and other provinces, and is also distributed in Southeast Asia. It is a common fragrant ornamental plant. Now the editors of Qiannong Network will take a look with you at the cultivation methods for orange jessamine!

Growth Habits of Orange Jessamine

Orange jessamine prefers a warm, humid environment with plenty of sunlight. It is not cold-tolerant and tolerates slight shade. A loose, fertile, slightly acidic soil is best, and the winter temperature should not fall below 10°C.

1. Orange jessamine prefers warmth, sunny positions and plenty of fertilizer. The optimum growth temperature is 20°C to 25°C. Under normal conditions, with ample sunlight and higher temperatures (around 30°C), the flowers produced have a strong fragrance. If it is placed in a shaded spot in summer while also being given large amounts of nitrogen fertilizer, this is a major reason why orange jessamine fails to bloom or blooms sparsely with a faint scent. Therefore, during its growth and development period, orange jessamine needs to be kept outdoors in a spot with ample sunlight, and care should be taken to apply somewhat more liquid fertilizer containing plenty of phosphorus. It is best to apply alum fertilizer water made by soaking and decomposing crushed bone meal, fish bones, chicken bones and the like, and to regularly supplement with chemical fertilizers containing more phosphorus or fermented rice-washing water. All of these help with flower bud formation and result in more blooms, golden-yellow color and a fresh, delicate fragrance.

2. Orange jessamine prefers humidity, and watering during the growing period should be moderate. If watered too much, it easily leads to root rot, with leaves turning yellow, withering and dropping; too much watering during the flowering period easily causes flowers and buds to drop; too little watering in turn causes the leaf edges to dry up and buds to wither. Therefore, when summer temperatures are high, in addition to watering 1 to 2 times a day, the branches and leaves should also be frequently sprayed and washed with clean water and water sprinkled on the ground where it is placed, to raise air humidity. At the same time, fertilizing should also be appropriate. Since orange jessamine blooms many times within a year, after each bloom it should promptly be given 2 to 3 rounds of topdressing with thoroughly decomposed, dilute liquid fertilizer, so that it keeps blooming continuously with a rich fragrance. Orange jessamine prefers acidic soil, and for pot cultivation a growing medium based mainly on leaf mold should be chosen. During the vigorous growth period, spraying once a week with 0.2% ferrous sulfate solution results in green leaves and abundant flowers.

Propagation Techniques for Orange Jessamine

Orange jessamine is commonly propagated by cuttings and air layering.

1. Cuttings include hardwood cuttings and softwood cuttings. The former uses branches grown in the previous year as cuttings and is carried out from April to May; the latter uses semi-lignified branches of the current year and is carried out from June to August. The standard for collecting softwood shoots as cuttings is that the leaves at the tip of the branch are thick in texture, green in color, and the axillary buds are plump. The cuttings should be about 10 cm long, retaining 2 to 3 leaves at the upper end, with all other leaves removed to reduce water evaporation and nutrient consumption, and the cut surface trimmed flat. The cutting medium can be river sand, expanded perlite, peat, vermiculite and so on. When inserting the cuttings, a bamboo chopstick can first be used to poke holes in the medium at a spacing of about 5 cm, then the cuttings are inserted into the holes to a depth of about 1/3 of the cutting. After inserting, press the soil firm with your fingers so that the soil and the cutting are in close contact, and water thoroughly. Set up a shade frame to maintain a ventilated, humid environment. The speed of rooting of the cuttings is closely related to the temperature of the cutting medium: with a high bottom temperature, rooting is fast. At a bottom temperature of 30°C to 32°C, rooting occurs 40 days after insertion; at 25°C to 28°C, it takes 50 to 60 days to root. However, with a high bottom temperature, leaves evaporate quickly and the cuttings' metabolism is in an active state; if humidity is low at this time, the cuttings easily drop their leaves, and once a cutting drops its leaves there is no hope of survival. So high temperature must also be accompanied by high humidity, usually maintaining a relative humidity of above 85%. Before cutting, soaking the base of the cuttings in 20 ppm to 25 ppm indolebutyric acid for 12 to 24 hours, or in 50 ppm indoleacetic acid for 15 hours, has the effect of promoting rooting.

2. Air layering can be done from May to September, but the best time is during the plum rain weather in June, when the survival rate of layering is high and rooting is fast. Generally, orange jessamine layered in early June will successively root after 40 days. The specific method is: choose a vigorous one-year-old lignified branch with a stem thickness of 0.5 mm. Make a ring cut 20 cm from the branching point, with a ring width of about 0.5 cm and a depth reaching the xylem, then apply moss or moist soil over the ringed area, and wrap it with plastic film, keeping the moss and so on always moist. After rooting, cut it away from the mother plant, first acclimatize it in a shaded place, and then pot it for planting. Using this method, the survival rate is high and the resulting plants bloom relatively quickly.

Cultivation and Management of Orange Jessamine

Although orange jessamine has fairly strong shade tolerance, it does not tolerate long periods of shade. Especially when potted orange jessamine is in full bloom, it should not be kept indoors for long periods. When it is flowering, it can be moved outdoors after 4 p.m. and moved back indoors before 9 a.m., so that it receives sunlight and accumulates nutrients for sending out new branches and new flower spikes. When moved indoors in winter, it should also be given as much light as possible.

Although orange jessamine is not strict about soil, a humus-rich, fertile, slightly acidic sandy loam is preferable. When preparing the potting soil, use 2 parts peat soil plus 1 part sand, or choose 2 parts fertile garden soil and 2 parts compost soil plus 1 part sand, mixed together.
 
After the seedlings are potted, when they have grown to 20 cm to 25 cm tall, they can be pinched back to encourage side branches to form a crown early, and at the same time to control plant height and increase flower quantity.

When potting orange jessamine, good drainage must be ensured. Watering depends on whether the climate is dry or wet; the potting soil should be kept moist but not waterlogged for long periods. Maintaining relatively high air humidity is beneficial to the growth of orange jessamine. In dry weather and during the vigorous growth period, it is best to spray water on the leaves 1 to 2 times a day.

Orange jessamine has dense branches and leaves and continuously sends out new branches during the growing period, forming flower spikes, so it needs sufficient fertilizer. If fertility is insufficient, flower quantity will clearly decline. For this reason, topdressing should be done promptly after growth begins in spring. Decomposed cake fertilizer or sesame paste residue water is best for topdressing. Orange jessamine cannot tolerate strong fertilizer, so fertilization should follow the principle of applying thin fertilizer frequently; especially when topdressing begins in spring, strong fertilizer must be avoided. Topdressing should be applied once every 7 to 10 days, and an appropriate amount of superphosphate should also be added to the fertilizer water.

When summer is hot, orange jessamine should be placed in a shaded spot, and can be put at the edge of a shade frame, so that it is neither exposed to strong light nor deprived of more sunlight. This is because overly strong direct light inhibits the growth and development of orange jessamine, while too much shade also easily causes it to grow leggy, become weak, and produce fewer flowers.

According to the temperature requirements of orange jessamine, potted orange jessamine generally cannot be moved outdoors until after Grain Rain, and in autumn it must be moved indoors for overwintering before Frost's Descent. During overwintering, the room temperature should preferably be kept at 10°C to 12°C. Too high a room temperature easily causes continued growth, which is unfavorable to growth and development the following year. But if the temperature is too low and drops below 5°C, it easily causes cold damage. When orange jessamine overwinters indoors, its leaves easily collect dust, affecting normal photosynthesis, so it needs to be rinsed once every so often.

Shaping should begin from the seedling stage, keeping a section of main trunk 15 cm to 20 cm high, and not letting the main branches grow in a cluster from the ground. Since orange jessamine sends out flower spikes from the axils of new leaves, it is generally not pruned. If the goal is to control tree shape and increase new branches, pinching can be done before new branches grow, or pruning can be combined with cuttings.