One of China's top ten famous flowers, evergreen through all four seasons with fragrance that carries far and wide, an excellent choice for potted plants and bonsai

Introduction

Green plants and potted specimens are essential accents for home life, beautifying the living space while also cultivating the mind and character. Keeping some flowers and plants at home brings many benefits. "Flower Sound Potted Plants Daily 3 Notes · Issue 1043" introduces you to one of China's top ten famous flowers.

Today's Featured Plant

Any flower lover who grows plants knows that our country once held a "Top Ten Famous Flowers" selection event, ultimately choosing ten representative flowers closely tied to traditional Chinese culture, including plum blossom, peony, orchid, camellia, and others. Today we introduce the ninth of China's top ten famous flowers - Osmanthus (sweet osmanthus). You may have seen it, but you may not necessarily understand it.

Osmanthus

Osmanthus is a traditional famous flower of China. The Chinese people cultivated it as early as over two thousand years ago, and it is recorded in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas." Although this plant does not have dazzling, eye-catching blooms, it possesses an incomparable floral fragrance. When it blooms, the scent carries for ten li, and it is praised as the "immortal tree" and the "moon elder among flowers," enjoying an exalted status. For those who succeed in their official careers and rise to prominence, there is the saying "plucking the osmanthus."

An Excellent Subject for Bonsai

The osmanthus tree is cold-tolerant and heat-tolerant, able to be planted in the open ground in both the south and the north. It combines greening, beautification, and fragrance in one, with remarkable advantages, and is widely used in landscape greening. When I was in university, the campus was planted all over with osmanthus trees. When they bloomed, the entire campus was wrapped in floral fragrance. Without leaving your room, you could smell the osmanthus fragrance - that scent was fresh and sweet, very comforting.

An Excellent Potted Plant

Of course, the osmanthus tree is also an excellent household potted plant. Its leaves are evergreen through all four seasons, and its flowering period is extremely long. The Four Seasons Osmanthus in particular blooms continuously throughout the year, its fragrance overflowing and filling the hall, always making people unable to put it down. Varieties suitable for household potting include Four Seasons Osmanthus, Ri Osmanthus, Zhusha, and Golden Osmanthus, with those produced in Linyi, Shandong and Suqian, Jiangsu being the best. They have strong adaptability, are very easy to grow, and can also be pruned and shaped into bonsai trees.

When the flowers bloom, fragrance fills the whole house

Summer is not a good season for growing flowers. Many plants and flowers, such as succulents, Rieger begonia, and clematis, are famously "bound to die in summer." In summer, besides traditional green plants like pothos and spider plant, is there nothing else? The osmanthus tree is very suitable. In summer the osmanthus is gathering its strength, waiting for autumn when flowers will bloom all over the tree. Grow it now, and you will soon be able to smell the floral fragrance.