Jasmine, Carolina

Carolina jessamine is a favorite native vine for gardeners in zone 6 and south, because it puts on a spectacular display of masses of fragrant yellow flowers in the spring, it's evergreen, and it's a robust grower with no serious diseases or pests and yet is not hard to control. The small, opposite, ovate leaves are widely spaced on wiry reddish stems that climb by twining. It's native to open woodlands with sandy moist soils in the east and south part of the state, east to Florida and north to Virginia. Although it adapts well to the heavy clays of the rest of the state, it will need some supplemental water the farther west it is grown from its native habitat. Carolina jessamine flowers most profusely in the full sun, but will also flower in the shade. It will twine on trellises and over supports on fences and walls, and can even be used as a dense groundcover. All parts of the plant are poisonous. Although it is sometimes mistakenly referred to as Carolina "jasmine," true jasmines belong to the genus Jasminum.