PlantFiles: Yellow Jessamine, Carolina Yellow Jasmine
Gelsemium sempervirens

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.

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.