I stopped by a local nursery to pick up a couple grasses that I needed and I spotted a vine that I’ve never grown: the deciduous Mandevilla laxa, known as Chilean jasmine. The large, very fragrant, white trumpet-shaped flowers quickly won me over, so I had to bring one home to try. It grows 10-20 feet and is supposed to be frost-tolerant.
The Sunset Western Garden Book says that it is much hardier than the related Alice du Pont and Red Riding Hood Mandevilla varieties. Chilean jasmine prefers full sun near the coast and light shade in hot inland areas. The fragrance is supposed to be similar to a gardenia, but to me it seems to have a softer, gentler scent than a gardenia, though still quite potent and really beautiful.
We’ll see if I have any success with it. Hope so! My nose has been stuck in its flowers every time I go onto the porch since I brought it home. If anyone has tips on exactly how much sun/shade to give it that’d be super!
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[…] When I sniff gardenia flowers, the jasmine character is more dominant to me than tuberose, so I’m making mine in the jasmine direction, and I smell an earthiness that sets gardenia flowers apart from jasmine. I love EL Tuberose Gardenia, but it seems more strong on tuberose than the real flower. Chanel Gardenia is very jasmine-rich but a bit sweet for me and doesn’t smell like gardenia to me. I’m not trying to create an exact gardenia dupe, but I’d like the floral notes to combine to be gardenia-ish and be set against some soft woods and musk in the base, and I’d like it to be creamy but not too sweet. I have something that I like quite a bit and am just adjusting things to keep improving it. I’ve actually been influenced by my mandevilla vine too, and my scent has some things in common with the fragrant white mandevilla blossoms, which smell similar to gardenia but less indolic and lighter (I posted about mandevilla previously, including a picture, here). […]
[…] Provence Lavender (easy and long-blooming here in our summer heat, and very fragrant) – Mandevilla vine (fun for its white fragrant blooms and exotic […]