Pretty in pink: a fashionable, fragrant favourite, star jasmine has an exciting colour break
In recent years, and especially in towns and cities, the star jasmines (
Trachelospermum jasminoides and
Trachelospermum asiaticum) have become much more widely grown. Their perfume is so strong that as you walk the streets you can sometimes smell it from round the corner before you can see the plants.
But up to now, the flowers of all the forms available have been cream or white. Not any more, we now have a pink flowered variety:
‘Pink Showers’.
With flowers in a shade of soft rose colour that appeals to everyone,
T. asiaticum ‘Pink Showers’ has
glossy evergreen leaves and twining stems that support the plant well on trellis.
The flowers of ‘Pink Showers’ open in July and August, for longer in sunny sheltered sites, and
their powerful jasmine fragrance wafts around the garden seductively. It thrives in a large patio container, perhaps with an obelisk around which it can twine, or on a trellis on a south or west facing wall. It appreciates well-drained but fertile soil.
As it matures it will develop a mass of rigid woody stems close to and amongst its support, pruning consists of removing weaker growth in spring and tucking longer shoots behind older growth or cutting them back closer to the support.
You can order plants of
Trachelospermum ‘Pink Showers’ from
Van Meuwen and from
Thompson & Morgan.
Please note that the contents of this blog reflect the views of its author, which are not necessarily those of the RHS
