How to Plant & Care for Sweet Olive Trees

Photo credit: Forest & Kim Starr

Osmanthus fragrans, or Sweet Olive Trees, are a heavily fragrant part-shade shrub. It’s sweet, orange-scented blossoms permeate the cool fall and spring air. It’s a scent you’ll come to find very familiar and look forward to each season. You’ll love these evergreen shrubs beautiful, glossy foliage that drips with clusters of small, creamy white blooms.

Sweet Olive Trees will mature to 8 to 10 feet high, and 6 feet wide, so be sure to provide plenty of space, or plan on pruning away lower limbs to create a tree form. The ideal planting area should receive 5 hours of morning sun and be shaded from direct afternoon summer sun. If you are planting in a prepared bed, amend with compost or composted cotton burrs, and expanded shale. If you are planting as a specimen or hedge, you can plant directly into the native soil. Apply root stimulator such as HiYield Root Stimulator every 4 weeks during the first 12 months. Water regularly with deep infrequent waterings.

Beginning in the second year after planting, around the last week of August, give them a cleanup with your hand pruners. Remove any broken branches, lightly tip them to promote fullness, and shape as desired. Follow up with an application of a slow-release fertilizer just after Labor Day. Here at North Haven Gardens, we love Espoma Holly Tone.

Plant these scented beauties this now and start to enjoy fragrance this fall!