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How To Care For The Sweet Pink Jasmine Everybody Loves

ByNell Foster Published on

If a plant had a TV show this would be it: “Everybody Loves Jasmine”. Everybody but me and a handful of my fellow gardeners that is. The object of Pink Jasmine’s, aka Jasminum polyanthum, adoration is the sweet-smelling flowers which appear here in winter/early spring and completely cover the plant en masse.

Pink Jasmine vine atached to a tree

This is a very common vine and can be seen on trellis’ (which they fast outgrow), walls, arbors and chain link fences along with growing up into trees and phone poles.  It gets to 25′.  You get the picture.

NOTE: I’ve since done an updated & more detailed post on Pink Jasmine care which you’ll find helpful.

As you can see, the jasmine has left the fence & is twining up through the magnolia.

Pink Jasmine growing untrained as a shrub surrounded by calla lilies not in flower

Here is that very jasmine which the gardener cut all the way down to a low mound. Good shrub, now behave. This falls under the category: think before you plant!

Big cluster of fully opened pink jasmine blooms, there are so many flowers you can't see the foliage underneath
This is what makes Jasmine a crowd pleaser – the abundance of starry white blooms in clusters.  They cover the plant & you can’t even see the foliage.

Why am I doing this post if I don’t like the plant you ask?  Although the flowers are way too strongly scented for me and it grabs onto anything it can making it pesky in my eyes, Jasmine remains a very popular landscaping plant. It’s sold everywhere.

I just saw it at our local Ace Hardware the other day on sale for $11.99 in 5 gallon pots. It was flowering and therefore selling like hotcakes. Nowadays, you can even buy one online.

Pink jasmine flower just starting to open up. You can see how pink and pretty the buds are before opening. They are bright pink and there are a lot of buds.

I was a professional gardener for many years and maintained a lot of this sweet-smelling Jasmine so I have some care tips to share with you.

This is the 1 thing I like about this jasmine – the pink flower buds. They’re lovely in bouquets & flower arrangements.

Here’s what you need to know about Jasmine:

* This is a very strong, dense-growing vine & can reach 25′.  It’s not a small scale plant. Give it room to grow.

* It’s a twining vine & needs some means of support & training.

* It is hardy to 10-15 degrees. That would be USDA Climate zone 8.

* Give it sun if you want it to flower.  Not hot scorching sun though, it’ll burn.  I’ve seen it growing in shade but it was very leggy with no flowers.  That equals no appeal. Part sun will do as long as it’s nice & bright.

* Water it regularly.  It can go drier once established but will appreciate & look better if deeply watered every 2 weeks.

* Jasmine starts to flower in winter here but if you are in a colder zone, it may not flower until spring.  Enjoy it while you can because it only puts out 1 big bloom a year.   Sometimes it puts out a very light bloom in Summer.  This plant is also very popular with butterflies & hummingbirds.  I know, I’m outnumbered all the way around. Even things with wings love it.

*  Keep in mind this plant grows very fast.  You’ll need to keep your pruners sharpened unless it can roam totally free where you plant it.

* As I said, it’s a dense growing vine & grows back on itself if there’s nothing for it to grab onto. In other words, it smothers itself & then needs to be cut all the way back.  It’s best to keep up with the trimming.

* It’s not fussy as too fertilizer & really doesn’t need it.  Applying organic compost once a year will make it happy.

Jasmine is also sold as a container plant. You just want to give it a big enough pot so it has room to grow. As a houseplant, it’s sold on rings when flowering. I’ve used it for weddings and parties but I have no experience with it as a houseplant. It would definitely need good, strong sun and regular water. It’s sold in hanging baskets which are fine for 1 season and then they need transplanting.

I’ve done an updated post on how to grow Pink Jasmine Vine with more info which you might useful. There are some new pics too!

New growth of a jasmine vine twining up a fence that was done specially for the jasmine to attach to it. The plant has no flowers and has a young green color
Here’s a close up of that new growth twining up.

Here’s the video about Pink Jasmine which was shot in my neighbor’s front yard:

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53 Comments

  1. i have a potted pink jasmine which is luxurious and produces multiple pink buds in the spring, but the buds never open to flower…..what’s wrong? (*santa cruz mountains, california)

  2. Hi Mary – That can happen when the winters are particularly rainy & wet but I don’t think that was the case for your area. It’s called flower balling. It could be not enough light, too much fertilizer, too much water or not enough. Nell

  3. Hi Nell,
    My pink Jasmin plants covered a good portion of the chain link fence between our neighbor and us. Over the years it built up a lot of dead material and rats made their nests in there. I had to cut it all down. Do you think it will grow back if I keep watering it? Ellen

  4. Hi Ellen – I’ve pruned a Pink Jasmine back to 14″ from the ground & it came back fine. You want to make sure there are some nodes showing on the stems so it can come back. Nell

  5. Hello Nell,

    My Pink jasmine, planted last year, is still acclimating. I live in Los Angeles, and it gets a half-day of sun on a west-facing fence.

    It has a lot of buds and flowers now, but many of the older vines have no bud growth. These vines also have a lot of last year’s bud stems still attached. Should I trim back these vines, or just the old bud stems, to facilitate new bud growth? The vine otherwise needs no pruning.

    Thank you very much!

  6. Hi Mickey – The best time to prune a PJ is after blooming. It’s good to do this because they set their buds in late winter & flowers on new growth. Nell

  7. Hi Nell,

    I have planted PJ in a large pot, I actually want to train the plant on the wall, is that possible? Also, I have observed that flowers after blooming fall off in 2 days, is this normal..?

    Thanks,
    Ana

  8. Hi Ana – Yes, you can train it on the wall but you’ll need a trellis or some other means of support to train & attach it. These plants flower so much at 1 time that the individual blooms can be short lived. Also, the wind’ll knock them off. Nell

  9. Help! My jasmine buds are turning brown and falling off before they bloom. I’m watering once a week and my soil is staying moist but I’m not sure what the problem is.

    Thanks!

  10. Hi Jaimie – I don’t know if it’s indoors or out, but it could be inconsistent watering. Nell

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