Heavily Scented Flowers that Bloom in Fall & Winter 

The Fragrant Tea Olive Tree, or Osmanthus Fragrans, is an excellent choice to sweeten up your garden with its incredibly delectable scent and soft white blossoms! The sweet olive tree may attract butterflies with the sweet scent.

The lush, green foliage of the Tea Olive shrub has pale undersides and is accompanied by a multitude of small, extremely sweet-smelling white flowers. The tiny creamy white tea olive tree blooms will perfume the entire landscape.

Since the fragrant olive tree flowers are not noticeably showy, visitors in your garden or landscape will wonder where the delightful fragrance is coming from. They will get their answer as soon as they pass this dense evergreen shrub with dark green leaves that keep their color all year long.

With its upright, vase-shaped growth habit the sweet osmanthus tea olive bush is ideal for use as a fragrant specimen plant, privacy hedge, or can be trained to grow as a small tree. The sweet Olive shrub should be placed where its delightful fragrance can be enjoyed. We enjoy seeing it as a border hedge in multiple foundation plantings.

Shop our Fragrant Tea Olive trees for sale and enjoy the fragrant sweet olive plants through the spring or fall growing season, no matter what time of year.

How Far Apart To Plant Tea Olives

It’s common for Tea Olive trees to be grown as privacy hedges. Sweet olive trees can grow up to 12 inches per year and around 10 to 12 feet tall and 8 feet wide at full maturity. Since they tend to be shrublike in nature, it’s best to plant tea olive trees about 4 to 5 feet apart so they have enough space to grow but are also close enough to provide a wall of privacy.

When To Plant Tea Olive Tree

The best time to plant tea olive trees is in the Spring and fall as these are the active growing seasons for sweet olive trees and also the times when their roots grow the most.

Tea Olive Tree Care

Caring for fragrant tea olive trees is simple once you’re aware of a few things. The Tea Olive prefers full sun or partial shade, as too much shade will lead to a less dense growth. 

Sweet olive trees prefer well-drained, acidic soils and can tolerate a wide variety of growing conditions such as clay, loamy, or sandy soils. The nutrient and water schedule for this plant is also super easy and they’re drought tolerant once established. Sweet olive trees are pest and disease-resistant and a great choice to grow in hardiness zones 8-11 across the United States, including some cold-hardy climates. 

Are Tea Olive Trees Poisonous To Dogs?

Good news! Tea olive trees are not toxic or poisonous to dogs or any other animal. This can be confused with tea tree oil, which needs to be created and processed and is highly toxic to dogs and cats.

When Do Tea Olives Bloom?

Fragrant tea olive tree blooms begin in early fall around October and usually last until early spring. Sweet tea olive trees can bloom several times a year and bloom for a long period at a time, sometimes as long as two months, letting you enjoy the fragrance and beauty of the olive tree flowers all year round.

How To Plant a Tea Olive Tree

Planting a fragrant tea olive tree in your garden is easy. Be sure to choose a planting spot in full sun if possible, although partial shade is okay too. Tea olive trees also prefer acidic soil that is rich in nutrients and well-draining soil to prevent root rot. 

Dig a hole that is no deeper than the root ball of your sweet olive tree and at least 2 or 3 times as wide, giving the tea olive tree root system space to grow. Unless you’re already planting the sweet olive tree in fertile soil, it would be best to mix in a soil amendment with the excavated soil before backfilling. Avoid covering the top of the tea olive tree root as this prevents air from reaching the roots, potentially suffocating them. 

Finally, water in the tea olive tree to help the soil and set and the roots establish themselves. Water the fragrant olive tree regularly the first year of planting to establish a strong root system and keep healthy white blooms. You can also apply a complete fertilizer with slow-release nitrogen yearly. 

How To Prune Tea Olive Tree

The best time to prune tea olive trees is in the late winter when the tree is dormant, although you can perform light pruning throughout the year, like removing broken, dead or diseased foliage or branches.

The Tea Olive should be pruned selectively, removing growing tips to maintain a bushy, compact size. They should not be sheared or severely pruned. Lower lateral branches can be removed to create a small, multi-trunked tree.

To prune tea olive trees trim back the tips of the branches, leaving about a ¼ inch about the next set of leaves or junction. You can also trim  any new growth in the summer if you want to prevent the tea olive shrub from getting bigger. 

Do Tea Olives Lose Their Leaves?

Tea olive trees are evergreen and usually keep their luscious green leaves all year. If your sweet olive tree is losing leaves it's likely due to a watering issue. Be sure to water your fragrant tea olive tree everyday to help keep it healthy. Other reasons tea olive trees lose their leaves include root rot, fungal root infection, extreme cold temperatures, or if its not getting enough sunlight.

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