How to care for Aglaia odorata? A detailed guide to growing Aglaia odorata

Aglaia odorata (Latin name: Aglaia odorata Lour), also known as four-season Aglaia and small-flowered Aglaia, is an evergreen shrub or small tree of the Meliaceae family and the genus Aglaia; it adapts to warm, humid climate conditions, and mature plants need plenty of sunlight

It prefers a warm, humid environment with abundant sunlight, is not cold-tolerant, and tolerates slight shade. It adapts to a fairly wide range of soils, but does best in deep, loose, fertile, slightly acidic sandy soil, with winter temperatures not below 10°C. It often grows in open woodlands or shrublands in low-altitude mountainous areas.

Aglaia odorata likes warmth, sunlight, and plenty of fertilizer. The optimum growing temperature is 20°C-25°C. Under normal conditions, with sufficient sunlight and higher temperatures (around 30°C), the flowers it produces have a strong fragrance. If it is placed in a shaded spot in summer and at the same time given a large amount of nitrogen fertilizer, it may fail to bloom or produce few flowers with a weak scent. Therefore, during its growth and development, Aglaia odorata needs to be kept outdoors in a sunny spot, and care should be taken to apply somewhat more liquid fertilizer containing plenty of phosphorus. It is best to use fully decomposed alum fertilizer water made by soaking 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 which help bud formation and lead to more flowers, golden-yellow color, and a fresh, delicate fragrance.

Aglaia odorata grows slowly and has a long lifespan; a hundred-year-old tree can still bloom.