I've had one in a pot for the last couple of years, and it seems to be doing fine. I used to bring it indoors, but last year I moved it to east Texas (Quitman - Wood County) so it's stayed out in its pot, and it's done MUCH better than when I brought it in.

So, you might do well to plant one above the caliche/limestone rubble in a pot.

Lin

I live in the Austin area, in soil similar to what you described. We planted a whole hedge of them (1 gal)last winter and they grew about 2 feet this year and look great. I should note that I used highly amended soil, so we'll see how this pans out in time.

So far so good though....

BJB,

What did you use to amend the soil? Are they growing in full sun esp afternoon sun?

Hi Lou and all. I've had one growing in unimproved thin alkaline 'soil' over limestone at my place for nearly 20 years. Not knowing any better at that time I just dug a hole and plopped it in. It is in a shady spot next to the house right outside my kitchen window and is taller than the overhang.

Amazingly I rarely give it extra water or even fertilize it. It gets water off the roof when it rains. It is a dark green and blooms from now until spring and sporatically after that.

Here is a clickable thumbnail photo I just now took:

It might grow larger and fuller and produce bigger blooms in improved soil, but I have no complaints about it.

The blooms are very fragrant, but I don't find that the fragrance wafts much, but that is probably due to a lack in my 'smeller.'

Happy gardening!

About seven or eight years ago I planted one in morning shade and a couple of hours of afternoon sun. The soil was somewhat improved, but not deeply. It grew for about three or four years and then died, probably from lack of enough regular watering in that spot.

I've had one for 3 years growing in my "natural woodland corner" in dappled shade in red clay with just little ammendment (compost is all). Can't say it's growing very fast, but it seems happy and blooms reliably. It does waft a little, but it's still pretty small. It was only a 1 gallon pot when I planted it.

Thanks. I'll give it a try! Probably build up a small mound of topsoil. I have a lot of earthworms so it may help as well. I practice organic and the soil sure seemed to be a lot better than what I started out with 3.5 years ago!

I'm gonna give named cultivars a try since they supposedly have more fragrance. âÂÂ'Conger Yellow' has yellow flowers. aurantiacus has orange flowers. 'Fudingzhu' is 4 season type that supposedly blooms 9 out of 12 months. Unfortunately, there's very limited numbers of named culitvars in USA. There are many many many more of them in China where they have been breeding for 2000 years! They have some awesome cultivars that I want. There is one that supposedly blooms 300 days! Fragrance is more powerful as well.

Named cultivars with more powerful fragrance sounds intriguing.

From what sources can one order them?

Try www.nurcar.com for 'Fudingzhu' (4 season), aurantiacus (orange) and thunbergii (yellow) and www.woodlanders.com for 'Conger Yellow'.

Lou-

I don't know if you have Garden-ville up in DFW, but I got their acidified soil mix. I can't remember the name of it or the contents though. My Sweet Olives seem to like it though.

Part of the hedge is mostly shade and part gets mostly sun, including afternoon. So far, I can't see an appreciable difference between those in the sun vs shade, but I guess time will tell on that.

My soil is acid so I can't comment on that part, but I can say from very solid experience, that full sun is much much better than any kind of shade. When I first started growing sweet olives I planted them in partial shade. Then I decided to use sweet olives as a hedge around my rose garden. The rose garden, of course, is in full all day, Texas sun. The sweet olives are so beautiful when they get full sun! And the hedge goes all the way around to a shadier area, where the sweet olives are still so short and straggly that I'm considering replacing them with something more shade tolerant.
Bottom line, they may live in the shade, but they are awfully ugly there.
I think the gardening books have done a big injustice to these shrubs by saying they like part shade to shade.

Thank you. I had wondered about planting them where they would get 4-6 hours of direct sun during the summer. That is good to know. Thanks!