PICAYUNE —
According to the calendar, we are just a few days away from the official start of the spring season. But if you have been watching the garden and landscape like I have, you’ve seen signs of spring for at least several weeks. The plants are starting to wake up.
Yellow jasmine is one of the most reliable early signs of spring and is native all over the Southeast. While you’re driving along the roads and highways in Mississippi, you can see yellow jasmine showing off its vivid blooms.
And show off it does, as the plant seemingly grows up and over almost anything that will support its vine-like growth habit.
Maybe that is why most homeowners are surprised or even shocked when I recommend yellow jasmine as a low-maintenance ground-cover plant. The response I usually get is, “I don’t want that plant taking over my yard!” Here’s the thing: when grown in a shady location, yellow jasmine will become the unruly scrambling plant we see at the edge of the woods. While the plant appears to be out of control, in reality it is just trying to find better light in which to grow.
The benefits of this search for better light are readily observed when it is grown in full sun — yellow jasmine becomes a well-behaved plant that is perfect for a ground cover.
This plant also can be trained to form an evergreen, dense and compact climber for a sunny trellis. It only takes a couple of seasons to have a nicely covered trellis. This is perfect for bringing the beautiful flowers up to eye-level for a closer examination.
Yellow jasmine displays its bright, clear yellow flowers in clusters, and it is easy to see how the plant got its common name. Botanically speaking, yellow jasmine is Gelsemium sempervirens. The individual flowers are funnel shaped and have the potential to be more than one inch in length and diameter. On calm days, you’ll enjoy their sweet fragrance.
The plant’s evergreen foliage is narrow, oblong shaped and a dark glossy green. Each of the leaves ends with a slender pointed tip. The leaves are paired opposite each other on the sienna brown stems.
When grown in the full sun, the branches and stems grow into tight jumbles that are hidden by the foliage. In part to full shade, these stems are more apparent and have a wiry appearance.
In addition to being a good selection as a full-sun ground cover, yellow jasmine has no problem growing in containers. What a good spiller this would make in a combination container!
Yellow jasmine is quite drought tolerant but will drop some leaves while waiting for much-needed rain. For the best growth throughout the year, be sure to maintain a consistent supply of water, especially if growing in containers.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Gary Bachman is an associate Extension research professor of horticulture at the Coastal Research and Extension Center in Biloxi. Locate Southern Gardening columns and television and radio programs on the Internet at http://msucares.com/news/.]
Homepage
Related Photos
-
Yellow jasmine is one of the most reliable early signs of spring and is native all over the Southeast. The plant seemingly grows up and over almost anything that will support its vine-like growth habit, and in full sun it can be trained to grow on a trellis or as a ground cover. Photo by MSU Ag Communications/Gary Bachman
Yellow jasmine brightens yards
Southern Gardening
- Local News
-
-
U.S. Marshall, local officials search area for escapees
U.S. Marshall's office, Sheriff, and Picayune Police Departments are currently searching for two escapees wanted for charges in Tennessee.
-
Valente defeats Watkins in precinct 1 race
Tammy Valente won the GOP runoff with incumbent Larry Watkins in precinct one in unofficial results.
-
Deputies arrest meth, cocaine suspects
Deputies arrested a couple on various methamphetamine charges on Tuesday, May 14, following an investigation by Pearl River County Sheriff’s Dept. investigators and the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Deputies also made an arrest for cocaine that same day.
-
Thorman announces candidacy for mayor of Picayune
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Mark Thorman has announced his candidacy and released this statement.)
Hello, my name is Mark Thorman.
I am humbly announcing my candidacy for Mayor of Picayune. -
WAR MEMORIAL
Work on the Veteran’s Memorial Walk in front of the Pearl River County Courthouse is underway. The brick walkway around the historical marker is coordinated by the Poplarville Rotary Club, Poplarville Area Chamber of Commerce and Pearl River Community College. The walkway is to honor local veterans.
-
U.S. Marshall, local officials search area for escapees
- Sports
-
-
Saints ready to practice with Payton again
Even as Sean Payton tried to make the best of his one-season bounty banishment from the NFL by spending time with his children, getting in shape and playing golf, he often compared his punishment to prison time.
He missed his work that much, his players say, adding that his return has infused Saints headquarters with a fresh intensity leading up to Tuesday’s opening of voluntary offseason practices. - Wildcats honored for efforts
- Season ends for Maroon Tide
- Season ends for Maroon Tide
- Tide stays alive
-
Saints ready to practice with Payton again
- Lifestyles
-
-
Arboretum Paths
At the recent Master Naturalist training held at the Crosby Arboretum, Master Gardener Susan Swope discussed how using more natives in our landscapes can save us both time and money. She went on to describe some methods well-suited to lazy gardeners. One was to create planting beds in lawn areas. First, mow the grass as short as possible, then add layers of newspaper or cardboard, add a thick organic layer such as leaves, and there you go— less grass to mow.
- CBAC Did you know? program highlights dangers to senior citizens
- 2013 Partners for Pearl River County By Jodi Marze
- Tami Harris takes state
- Arboretum Paths
-
- State News
-
-
Fire chief says search almost complete in Oklahoma
The search for survivors and the dead is nearly complete in the Oklahoma City suburb that was smashed by a mammoth tornado, the fire chief said Tuesday.
- Indian guest workers sue company in Miss., Texas
- Man wants pay for snakes seized in Miss. porn case
- Tornado churns through Oklahoma City suburbs
- Tchnology can speed emergency response
-
Fire chief says search almost complete in Oklahoma
- International
-
-
Argentine Jorge Bergoglio elected Pope Francis
Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected pope Wednesday and chose the name Francis, becoming the first pontiff from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium.
Looking stunned, Francis shyly waved to the crowd of tens of thousands of people who gathered in St. Peter’s Square, marveling that the cardinals needed to look to “the end of the earth” to find a bishop of Rome. - Pope Benedict VXI resigning
- Suicide bomber kills guard at US Embassy in Turkey
- EU summit ends without budget deal
- Govt to let Cubans travel freely
-
Argentine Jorge Bergoglio elected Pope Francis
- Opinion
-
-
Not your mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist
I haven’t seen the Ladies’ Home Journal in about a million years, except maybe in the dentist’s office when I was trying to avoid a television permanently set on Fox News.
Somebody’s grandchild was selling magazines for a school project, and Ladies’ Home Journal was the only one on the list I recognized. Now it comes to the house.
Let’s just say: It’s not my mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal. This month, right behind a feature called “A Country of People Who Never Stop Eating” is one called “Nice Girls Do Get Tattoos.” - Health care market needs oversight
- VA’s appalling failures not recent
- Dolley Madison politically savvy
- Mississippi isn’t immune from national college tuition trends
-
Not your mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal
- News Distribution Network
-
US Marshalls dig through rubble in a neighborhood on 149th Street and Santa Fe Drive hoping to find survivors from a tornado that hit Moore, Okla., Monday, May 29, 2013. Kyle Phillips
-
Okla. officials vow not to quit looking until everyone is found
The tornado that killed 24 people and injured at least 100 others in the Moore and Oklahoma City area cut a 17-mile-long path that started in Newcastle and ended at Lake Stanley Draper. Nine of the dead are children.
- The Big One: Preparing for mid-America earthquake
- 5 takeaways from the IRS report
- Warning Signs: Technology speeds disaster alerts, response
- Do school bus drivers undergo background checks?
-
Okla. officials vow not to quit looking until everyone is found
- CNHI Special Projects
-
Jim Greeson, Indiana's state fire marshal, leads Terre Haute fifth-graders in an earthquake drill in February. The drill was held in connection with the annual Great Central U.S. ShakeOut. Here Greeson demonstrates the "Drop, Cover and Hold On" technique for surviving an earthquake inside a building.
-
The Big One: Preparing for mid-America earthquake
It’s a bleak scenario. A massive earthquake along the New Madrid fault kills or injures 60,000 people in Tennessee. A quarter of a million people are homeless.
- Technology speeds disaster alerts, response
- Warning Signs: Technology speeds disaster alerts, response
- Tips for tornado readiness
- Against the wind: Tornado veterans balance preparedness, practicality
-
The Big One: Preparing for mid-America earthquake
Florida FBI Shooting Has Boston Bombing Links
Garcetti Elected Los Angeles Mayor Over Greuel
Raw: New Video of Deadly Oklahoma Tornado
IRS Official Pleads 5th Amendment
Lawyer: Feds Investigating Susan Powell Case
Former Rep. Weiner Running for New York Mayor
Jodi Arias: Death Penalty Would Cause More Pain
Police Ram House to End Hostage Standoff
Families Begin Returning to Their Homes in Moore
Raw: Aerial View of Moore Tornado Damage
Looking for Love? Take the Prague Metro
First Person: Baby Falcons on a New York Bridge
Crews Race to Find Survivors of Okla. Twister
Oklahoma: Images of Devastation, Reunion
Raw: Students Clash With Police in Chile
Protests Outside Cincinnati IRS Office
New Xbox One Entertainment Console Unveiled
