PlantFiles: Yellow Jessamine, Carolina Yellow Jasmine
Gelsemium sempervirens

Vestia, that's toxic to *non-native* bees, including the invasive species we call honeybees; native species are immune or avoid the plant. Pretty funny, no?

And in case your state of mind persists, you'll be glad to know that according to the US Pharmacopeia, Gelsemium can treat irritability and "mental instability", among other ills!

This plant while an American native, is not one to plant, owing to its great toxicity. It is not only toxic to people, pets, and wildlife - it is also one of the few plants who's nectar is toxic to bees. The adults bees are not affected, but when they take the nectar to the hive it affects the brood. Skip this plant - remove it if you have it. Bees are in trouble and need our help.

Have had much luck with Carolina Jasmine here in the Boise Valley --- zones 6 - 7. The variety is 'Margarita', and I secured the plants from nurseries in Virginia and Pennsylvania. I have vines at my own house in Boise and at 3 other clients here in the Valley. They are all having good success!! The plants easily take temperatures down to zero [which is rare here], and little or no damage, and have bloomed regularly ever year. The plants are now over 5 years in the ground, and are even more vigorous. They put on their heaviest display this spring. Do they repeat blooming in other climates? There just seems to be that one time here in the Boise, Idaho area.

I've lived in my house for 12 years and have never gotten more than 3 or 4 blooms on any of the 4 Carolina Jessamines. I don't know how old the plants are as they were already here when I moved in. Two are growing on an arbor along with some climbing roses. The roses are deep red with yellow centers and bloom profusely in the spring. The jessamine add greenery but rarely bloom. They get a mixture of sun and shade. I am about to redo the arbor and plan to remove the jessamine and replace them with yellow clematis. Two more jessamine are planted in the back yard, growing up a trellis--these have never bloomed, but the greenery is nice.

It is growing here in zone 11 in the forest ... I was walking and saw lots of yellow flower on the floor and then I looked up and there it was .. Very pretty.

I bought this plant for $1 at my local garden center. It was sad-looking, wilted, and was a "maybe, it's only a buck" purchase. It has grown 200% in just a few weeks, fills the whole area with fragrance, and is covered in fabulous flowers. I have it in a shady spot, as the sun here is brutal. I hope it is as invasive as the posts say---I would love to see it take over the whole area! A great little plant for zone 9b.

I've had my plant in the ground for 3+ years and I really don't know if it grows well SINCE THE STUPID DEER HAVE CONTINUOUSLY EATEN THE LEAVES OFF IT. Despite that, it lived. I finally dug it out of the ground and have it in a pot on my deck. It is struggling to thrive, only putting out a few tiny leaves. I hope I didn't kill it...

This plant grows great in my area. While not on the beach, i am coastal (10 minutes or less inland). Planted about 6-7 years ago - this is a monster! Get ready to cut back 2-3 times a year, or plant it in an area that will not allow it to strangle other plants, or attach itself to structures, wires, etc. Great for trellis type objects, however the more open the spacing, the better. I used pt wood lattice and 4x4s - my lattice has curled forward about 30%!

Mine is in in mostly sun to part shade. I go willy nilly on this sucker and just chop it back about a 1/3 of it's size 2x a year (planted too close to house....duh!), and it STILL grows like a beast. Flowers almost all year here. I have even had it bloom in the warmer winters. Right now it has overtaken 16' width of lattice and about 7' in height - if not cut back, I probably could have covered a fence bordering the entire 1 acre of property!

Now I must move it to another section in the yard. If anyone has any tip as to transplanting...please let me know! I plan to cut it almost all the way back and dig up as much of the root ball as possible...and do it in the fall, probably October?

We just planted what we thought was Carolina Jasmine in a large pot with a trellis, and it's doing fine. We're in Los Angeles, also known as a desert, so we'll have to water it. I have two concerns: the salesperson at the large garden chain that sold me this plant called it Carolina Jasmine, but the tag (which I didn't look at) says it's Swamp Jessamine Gelsemium rankinii - but still I would have thought that Caroline Jasmine must be another name for it (at the time I thought it was a true jasmine). When I looked up the Latin name I found that Carolina Jasmine is species sempervirens, not rankinii. Sempervirens has a strong aroma; rankinii does not - and I suspect that mij13 in San Diego also got rankinii, so that's why there's no fragrance - we also have one we put in the ground several years ago, it's big and strong but also no aroma. The tag also doesn't reveal how toxic Gelsemiums are - alkaloids related to strychnine that can kill honeybees as well as people if eaten.

This is the best plant I know of in this area for planting on a fence, especially a chain link fence. It can turn a drab old fence into a beautiful fence. The evergreen leaves and the nice spicy scent are a bonus. I've never seen this plant naturalize or become invasive anywhere in this area, probably because of lack of enough rainfall. I've never even seen it escape the boundaries it was planted in. However, I'd like to give a negative to all the commercial growers out there who ALWAYS market the plant with a big fat peat stake in the pot. Just who would want to grow it on a stake? And you really have to cut the plant back to almost nothing when transplanting so it will train itself on a fence or trellis anyway. But I guess if they sold it with no stake, it wouldn't look very attractive and would sprawl all over the place.

Wow, someone actually gave their own state flower a negative.

I was surprised to see that this plant was Zone 7. I live in zone 6, and have had yellow jasmine (jessamine) for at least 5 years, and it has covered 3 sides of my gazebo, and is doing well on my arbor. It blooms profusely for about a week in April, and is absolutely gorgeous! The rest of the summer, it provides welcome shade, and in winter, a touch of green. It does not take over here in Kentucky the way it might farther south. I just bought two plants to grow on my fence, and hope they will do as well.

I just acquired this beautiful plant from a nursery that is also unfamiliar with it. It's only in a 4" pot. It is fully in bloom and sending out new growth. I am in zone 5a so it must be a houseplant here. I don't see any comments regarding this as a houseplant. I would welcome advice.

Sorry, wrong plant. I have Jasminum mesnyi PRIMROSE jasmine, not "yellow".

I have two plants that have done very well for the past year, here in Southern California. It's now mid Feb., and they're both in full bloom. I'm growing them up against the side of my garage, and hope they will spread out and cover it. The blossoms are very vivid and pretty, but not especially fragrant. I have some pink jasmine nearby and was worried that these would clash in the spring. I had nothing to worry about, it seems. It's a very lovely vine plant and I'd recommend it.

My Husband planted this plant in 2001 in front of our hot tub deck on the north side of our house. It had taken over the entire front of the the deck providing excellent privacy. However, It also blooms in the most extreme circumstances. Last year it bloomed in 16 degree temerpartures in february. Ive never seen such blooming in such adversity. the plant tends to move towards the east of the deck. < wish it would move towards the west more. LOL. > It is very profilfic. It has become so dense that it has became a place for the cats to lie in from the roof, and in the past the farm rats have been seen inside of it, fortunatelty for us the cats find it a wonderful place to hang out and get themselves a nice meal.

Currently though, I have noticed that where it was planted, was on the part of the deck that had wood lattice. the rest of the deck had plastic lattice. so the wood lattice is breaking. So I want to cut the plant down and move it, so i can replace the rest of the deck with plastic lattice.. I do not wish to kill it, Just move it. I gather it seems to flourish in a north west sun exposure. but I am not sure how it will do if I hack the majority of it down just to free up the deck from damage and move it to a fence or tree area. Id love to hear some advice.

On the east side of the deck we have honey suckle that has grown beautifully and winds up into the doors and moves freely with the opening and closing of the lattice doors. on the west side of the deck is wisteria. and on the south side of the deck is fragrant passion vine which is a very extreme prolific vine. I find it all of a sudden is also groiwng up all over the yard in peculiar places, I have to dig it up and pot it and gift it to neighbors, it even entagles into the jasmine and covers the house. I find the passion vine to be the most hassling of all the vines I have, but it is a wild flower here. and it does produce fruit so at least it does something useful. LOL.

If anyone has anything useful for the hacking and moving of my massive jasmine, I would appreciatte to know, I really dont want to risk killing it. And to think it started out in a 6 inch pot 8 years ago, LOL and now is 10 feet tall very bushy and about 30 feet wide.

I have had 2 Carolina Yellow Jasmine for 2 years and the plant grows beautifully but I have no flowers at all. I tried fertilizing but no luck. I read about the beautiful flowers and the wonderful scent.
What am I doing wrong???

This is our state flower. It is a native and is very much at home here. In this area it is quite capable of growing and flowering beautifully without any human intervention. In fact, in early spring it lights up the forests all along the roadside.

I walked out of my back door a few weeks ago to find an area I call the Arbor Path positively aglow from the explosion of yellow Jessamine blooms there. Appearing as though someone had taken a highlighter marker to both sides of the path, it was an amazing thing to see and absolutely impossible to ignore. What is more incredible is that due to illness I had failed to weed, fertilize, or otherwise care for the area for years, yet this plant was still blooming in indescribable profusion.

Lastly, I must take exception with the description of this plant growing to 20ft. Shortly after awakening to find my backyard awash in yellow Jessamine blooms, I noticed, while walking near a very old forest, that the top 10ft or so of many of the trees there, tall, mature pines and oaks, were colored bright yellow with yellow Jessamine blossoms. The trees were easily 60ft or more in height and yet the Jessamine had managed to climb to the top of many of them and bloom there. I reiterate that there were no blooms in the lower 3/4 of the trees. Only the top 10-20ft of the forest canopy was aglow with yellow Jessamine blooms, but they had apparently climbed many feet to get there. Regrettably this incredible sight was in an area where photography is absolutely not permitted; otherwise, I would surely have taken a photo to show you.

We let it grow wild up into the trees. No special care here. Even in the heat of the summer.

I have had this plant for years. It can get big like any vine can, but we did not have to do much to keep it under control. I would say it is one of the less aggressive growers than most vines and easy to control.

I have one of these in front of my house. We live in Western NC. It didn't bloom much this past spring, two flowers. I need to know when to prune this as it is getting very tall for the space it is in. Anyone have any tips on when and how to do this. Thanks

This is my state flower, and I was lucky enough to buy a house that already had significant quantities of it. It is is a prolific climber/rambler, which can be a good or bad thing depending on your needs. Keep an eye on it and prune as needed, because it will overgrow surrounding shrubs. The flowers are divine, and personally I enjoy the color contrast between the stems and the leaves. In my yard it grows in full and part sun, and works as a groundcover if there's nothing for it to climb.

Most notably, this plant is a US native that is recommened as a suitable alternative for many non-native and/or invasive plants. Ironically, four of the invasives below came with my property

PlantWise: Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants
Gelsemium sempervirens is a PlantWise native alternative for:
Ampelopsis brevipedunculata (Amur peppervine)
Hedera helix (English ivy)
Jasminum dichotomum (Gold Coast jasmine)
Jasminum fluminense (jazmin de trapo)
Lonicera japonica (Japanese honeysuckle)
Lygodium japonicum (Japanese climbing fern)
Vinca major (bigleaf periwinkle)
Vinca minor (common periwinkle)

These ladies grow like crazy here in Louisiana. I've seen them in the very tops of the tallest pines here. I called them river flowers as a child. Every summer, when I'd go to a river or creek with my dad, the scent of these flowers seemed to float just above the surface of the water. Even when there wasn't a single yellow bloom in sight, we could tell when they were nearby. I liked to watch the fallen flowers float by in the lazy creek near dad's house.

Here in central Georgia, these vines have gone wild and grown high up into trees. (My property is a woodland thicket!) You rarely see the vines, but they do begin blooming early- and often the fallen blossoms cover the path! It took me a bit of effort to discover exactly what plant was garlanding my forest paths with golden flowers, because the vines were all hidden high in the treetops! Now I know and plan to use some as fence covers.

I planted this in my garden in S W France last summer. It astounded me by shrugging off a week of -12C nights and -1C days in January, putting out a few buds and flowering immediately afterwards. Now, in April, it is looking very happy and has a number of flowers and many buds. I will need to wait a while before finding out whether its vigour is a problem here, but will hopefully be able to keep it in check with regular pruning. So far it has very much exceeded my expectations! My books describe it as only frost hardy.

Got this from Logees and it's such a delicate little thing with small precious blooms. It seems to grow slow but from reading other posts, it will probably speed up in the springtime. I have it in a small container at the moment - it's only about 5" long. Fragrance is nice when you put your nose to the flowers.

we knew it was a bit risky this far north, but we planted two gorgeous jessamines in early october. they were in a semi-sheltered location, but both died very early into the winter. we've replaced them with honeysuckles, which we expect will do much better.

Native here. I have seen 2-inch trunks climbing up trees. In late winter you can smell the flowers and see the fallen yellow blooms even if the blooming bits are out of view way high up in the canopy. All parts are toxic but there isn't really much else wrong with it.

Purchased 2 weeks ago. It is really doing better than expected! Already climbing a bark wreath I have placed above it. My plant faces east and has partial sun throughout the day. I bought it at a popular home-improvement store and plan to get 1 more.

Carolina Jamine is a beautiful Texas Native vine with evergreen foliage and lovely yellow scented blossoms in the early Spring.
Very easy to grow.

Love this plant! I deep watered a couple times last summer during the dought we had, and my husband insisted on trimming it away from the garage roof, but otherwise very carefree!

I've used this over the years as a cover for unsightly chainlink fencing.
We also have it trained on two mock fences in front of my office - we put in "corners" of vinyl fence in front of the house where I work, and planted the Carolina jasmine. In a few short years, it's overtaken them both and we have the vine pruned back so that it resembles a hedge on either side. In the spring, they're both laden with yellow flowers that attract both bees and positive comments from our clients.

The forsythia of the south? But... I thought forsythia was the forsythia of the south. We live in Alabama and forsythia is EVERYWHERE here.
Heck, I have a few shrubs here that I've transplanted to the lawn from the woods behind my house.

But I digress... this stuff is great for covering fences, arbors, or anything else you can train it on when it's young. All I do is keep it cut back during the summer, after blooming stops. Shoot... I don't even water or fertilize it and it does just fine.

Fast growing fountain that supplies the hummers and bees with food. Supply the neigborhood with new plants from the runners, keep it controlled with a cutback two feet from the gorund once a year and it is fine. Brilliant colour!

I think of this flower as the forsythia of the south -- it is one of the first flowers to emerge in Spring and can be frequently seen in our area growing wild in the woods along roadways, often reaching the tops of trees.

I have three of the plants in various places on fences in my yard. They are spreading rapidly and I expect in a few years I will happily have the fences covered with their canary yellow, sweetly fragrant flowers.

We planted this last year and have been very pleased with the speed of its growth! The flowers smell wonderful and they are a beautiful color.

I have moved my Jasmine several times so I am not sure if I have caused its lack of performance but it is still hanging in. I moved it from its first home in the ground in Waco, Texas to a large pot in Baytown, Texas. It did well in the pot blooming and growing well. I then, moved again and took it to La Porte, Texas and planted it in the ground again. I have provided a trellis for it but it hasn't done as well here. A lot of the leaves look scorched and it is starting to bloom now...and seed. I think I am finding Jasmine seedlings at the base of it.

This plant can get away from you if you are not careful to keep it trimmed and root pruned. It can develop extensive running roots and take over your fence or the area it is in. Growing it in pots is a great idea to keep it contained.

I have had two growing in pots for 4 years with little care. They are very satisfactory with evergreen foliage and lovely, aromatic yellow flowers in Spring.

If you keep it consistently watered, it will delight you with a renewed rush of blooms in early fall.