Upoffmebum

By Upoffmebum

Autumn leaves...

...Not in the sense of autumn departing - it only just got here - so much as leaves changing colour during autumn.
Chinese Star Jasmine leaves as it happens, growing upwards from a large pot positioned underneath the deck, to wind around the steel cabling running between the support posts on top of the deck. Trachelospermum Jasminoides is certainly slow growing to start with - nothing much seems to happen for months on end - but once it's established and happy, the vine makes very quick progress along the cabling. Which is probably why nurseries describe it as a twining climber.
It's also tagged as an evergreen, which can be a bit misleading, because during autumn those glossy leaves gradually change colour from full-on green to a range of attractive earthy brown/red tones. (Got the photos to prove it!) Perhaps it's more accurate to say that it's not deciduous.
The small white flowers in summer are very pleasantly scented, but not overwhelmingly so, and have a soft and delicate appearance. But that's not to say the plant is fussy or temperamental. Quite the opposite, it's a hardy, resilient plant, and while it certainly needs water kept up to it during the heat, it can also shrug off all but the coldest of frosts.
A lot of folk reckon it's possum-proof as well. Don't have any experience or data on that one way or the other, but it strikes me that if the flowers happened to be to a possum's taste, I wouldn't be betting large sums on their surviving the bushy-tailed onslaught. Seems a lot more likely that the flowers simply aren't to the possum's taste, and so they tend to leave them alone. Just like they do soursobs.
The plant originated in China, in keeping with its common name, and enjoys that country's climate so much that it comes to be regarded as a weed in some regions.
I read somewhere that it can get a bit out of control in some areas of Australia too. Could be wrong, but I suspect that that is more likely to happen in more tropical and semi-tropical climes, rather than the semi-arid south.
Besides, not sure that an out-of-control wall of perfumed Jasmine flowers would present much of a nuisance in most gardens.

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