Hi Roselee,

Even though I am over in Florida, I come to the Texas forum almost daily. I love looking at your photos. I even directed the good folks on the Florida forum over to see your Meat Claw.

Your plants are recovering well! Where did you get your English Dogwood/Mock Orange/Philadelphus? And what is the name of your variety? I picked one up at a local garden club's plant sale and it bloomed gloriously this spring, but no scent at all. None. Zip. Nada. I'll post some photos.

After reading this blog, "Is it the Real Mockorange, or the Mock?", I am in pursuit of the "right" one. If you have time, would you please take a look at the blog? The comments at the bottom are also helpful.

I want the one with great scent. I have saved tons of links on Mock Orange, but the info and opinions vary from site to site and I'm still not sure which one to buy in order to get the fragrant one.

Some links:

Best Dwarf Mock Orange Philadelphus for Fragrance?

Philadelphus Varieties and Types List – Best Ten Mock Orange Bushes

Mock On! (Mock Oranges for Your Garden)

Mock Orange Fragrance

MOCK ORANGE FOR BEAUTY AND FRAGRANCE

I hope you don't feel as though I hijacked your thread. I didn't know you had a Mock Orange and got all excited when I saw your photos and you said that yours smells good.

Thanks a million and Happy Gardening!

Carol in Jacksonville (Florida)

roselee, my yard wants to be like yours when it grows up.

Everything looks gorgeous ... so glad it's all thriving after the storm. And I especially love pictures with Alfie in them. :)

Love the Yard, thank you for the photos! I also have an unscented mock orange and I love the long blooming season of pure white flowers. In a way it's like the South's answer to the lovely dog wood, which doesn't grow as easily in my climate.

I happened upon the fragrant mock orange when it was blooming at the Antique Rose Emporium. When I got a whiff it went in my cart real fast! LOL It was named, but I lost it when my computer crashed. It's bloom form is different than my other one in that is has tight clusters of four or five flowers. It's a variety well worth searching for.

MizGG, thank you, but your yard will surpass mine by leaps and bounds when it has had the time to grow up. I've been retired for almost 10 years and having the extra time helped. And thanks for appreciating my Mother's Day gift from above -- Alfie.

Bizarre. When I'm logged in, I can see my first post (before the photos). If I log out, it is gone. Here's my logged-in screen-shots where you can see the missing post:

I wonder what is up with GardenWeb today. :(

Carol

Text version:

Hi Roselee,

Even though I am over in Florida, I come to the Texas forum almost daily. I love looking at your photos. I even directed the good folks on the Florida forum over to see your Meat Claw.

Your plants are recovering well! Where did you get your English Dogwood/Mock Orange/Philadelphus? And what is the name of your variety? I picked one up at a local garden club's plant sale and it bloomed gloriously this spring, but no scent at all. None. Zip. Nada. I'll post some photos.

After reading this blog, "Is it the Real Mockorange, or the Mock?", I am in pursuit of the "right" one. If you have time, would you please take a look at the blog? The comments at the bottom are also helpful.

I want the one with great scent. I have saved tons of links on Mock Orange, but the info and opinions vary from site to site and I'm still not sure which one to buy in order to get the fragrant one.

Some links:

Best Dwarf Mock Orange Philadelphus for Fragrance?

Philadelphus Varieties and Types List – Best Ten Mock Orange Bushes

Mock On! (Mock Oranges for Your Garden)

Mock Orange Fragrance

MOCK ORANGE FOR BEAUTY AND FRAGRANCE

I hope you don't feel as though I hijacked your thread. I didn't know you had a Mock Orange and got all excited when I saw your photos and you said that yours smells good.

Thanks a million and Happy Gardening!

Carol in Jacksonville (Florida)

Link to the blog:

Is it the Real Mockorange or the Mock?

Now I've really gone and hijacked your thread. :(

Carol

I don't see your comments as hijacking 'my' thread at all. The forum is first and foremost for discussion and learning so anything that triggers that is welcome.

Since I couldn't click on your links (don't know why they don't show up on your post) I did a Google search for fragrant mock orange varieties . I was hoping seeing some names would trigger my memory of which variety mine might be, but unfortunately nothing clicked. Anyway it seems there are quite a few fragrant varieties to look for. Let us know what you find.

Mine does produce seed, but there is no way of knowing how true to the parent the seed will be, especially since I have the non scented variety growing about 30 feet away. Better to devote time and space to one that you know is scented.

I bought it at the San Antonio location of Antique Rose Emporium which is now closed. Wishing you the best in your search.

Popping in from Oklahoma to say your garden looks great...and I love your metal flamingo!

Although I lost a few flower stalks from amaryllis and lilies, which means no flower this year, but now the yard looks as if no hail had ever come through. It's great to see your plants flourishing now.

Thank you Sandplum all the way from Oklahoma!

Purslane, glad to hear your garden has recovered except for the lilies losing their chance for this year. One thing I lost was a good Satsuma crop. It was covered with little fruit. After the storm I can only find one.

I am thinking my fragrant mock orange is Philadelphus ‘Innocence’ because of the arrangement of the flowers and some of the foliage on my plant being variegated. Also the name is starting to sound familiar ... :-)

Thanks for your time and generosity with your thread, Roselee! It is helpful to know what you think yours is.

Crazy - all my posts show up today, whether I'm logged in or not. I noticed a trend for part of yesterday that photos posted; links did not. Glad that seems to have cleared up.

If you get a chance, check out the link to the Mock-or-Not article, now that it appears. That was the first heads-up I got last fall that the new Mock Orange I had just purchased at the garden club plant sale might not have scent. I waited all winter. And then the spring blooms came. Gorgeous plant - and my neighbor even asked what it was! - but not the whole package. You know how it is - we always want the whole package. :)

Thanks again and happy gardening to all in Texas!

Carol in Jacksonville, FL

It thundered and rained all last night. Apparently the weight of the large wet leaves on the fast growing Mexican olive was its downfall ...

It will be interesting to see if it can be trained into a graceful tree again or if a bunch of little branches will proliferate in one place. Any advice?

Carol, haven't looked at the mock orange article yet, but am eager to do so.

Ohhhh nooooo! My mexican olive lost a large branch last year, but it had multiple trunks, so just ended up looking a little lopsided. Kind of fits in with everything else around here.

I'd give it some time and see what comes up. Even trunks I've cut out in the past sprout at the base. It'll have a lot of time before winter to bring up more foliage.

Lisa

PS Alphie is still adorable :-)

Thanks Lisa. I'm thinking maybe I should just cut it to the ground and let it come up with multiple trunks.

Aww, roselee, I hate that this happened. :( I agree about cutting it. Sure hope it survives.

I thought our Crape was a goner after a major storm, but luckily no branches broke. The flowers soaked up rain like sponges! We were able to stake it back up.

After a year of being staked, all good. The trunks are much bigger since this pic was taken, and it's not so top heavy.

Oh Roselee, too sad and ironic that you would have this to post in your thread titled "Major Damage". Oh, shoot. I'm so sad for you and your plant. Maybe it will come back stronger and better. I would cut off the two broken branches and leave the third (intact) branch so that it has some leaves for photosynthesis to make energy for the plant. Then I would watch to see what Mother Nature wants to do with it. You can always go back to your idea to cut it to the ground next spring. I would give it the rest of this season - with some leaves - to form a stronger main trunk. Just my two cents (but it's your plant and if you want to cut, cut!)

I also had a large (12') crape myrtle whose branch bent all the way to the ground after a long, heavy few days of soaking rain. In the photo below, what looks like a shrub in my neighbor's yard is actually my crape myrtle branch, bending into their yard. After three days and it did not go "back up", I ended up cutting it off. I couldn't have it laying in their yard. Would not have been my first choice, but I had to be a polite neighbor and I didn't want them to have to ask. So I kinda committed Crape Murder - - once. :)

Ragna... That's so sad! It was so beautiful. I didn't think that it rained that hard last night. We're not that far from you. We're going out this morning to check out our Olive tree and other tall plants. I hope you are able to prune it back. Dh and I might have to make a trip back to Aunt Minnie's (if she is still open). Oh my goodness...., I can't believe that happened.

Oh darn, Roselee - was so excited about your Mexican Olive blooming at the beginning of this post. Fingers crossed it can return from the unbroken trunk. Everything else looks amazing.

Love_the_yard, I also have both scented and unscented Mock Orange shrubs. The tall unscented one sends out suckers - it was originally planted by my neighbors and some had sneaked under the fence. I was thrilled to have it grow on my side of the fence. The name I found for the native unscented one was Philadelphus inodorus. Some people from other states who saw my photos said they knew it as English dogwood. Native Florida website

The scented one is the descendant of one of my mom's Mock Oranges - NOID but treasured.

Thank you all for your comments. I've left the trunk of the Mexican olive to see if it will sprout all along the trunk and not just the top. It kept wanting to do that, but I've pinched them off to keep a clean look. The one limb that looked to be intact actually was split off from the trunk so unfortunately it couldn't be saved.

Annie, my unscented mock orange came from a large tree in Seguin that sends up suckers several feet away. In my soil, it has never suckered nor grown more than 6/7 feet tall and staying fairly narrow. It's a beautiful thing, but I do appreciate the scent of what I think is 'Innocence' ... hmm 'cence' may be a play on words for 'scent'.

Love the Yard, I read the article Is it the Real Mockorange or the Mock?. Interesting. Breeders do want to fiddle around with a beautiful original edition. Sometimes we get something better, bigger blooms or whatever; and sometimes not.

This is a photo from mid April '14 of my non fragrant 'mock' mock orange ...

But I love it. It has a long blooming season and the flowers are so very white.

I try to be the boss of my unscented mock orange, not allowing it to spread and smother the other plants in that border. I keep it pruned to about 8 ft in height. My neighbors let the mock orange run wild on the other side so branches wave 12-15 ft in the air and the plant has formed a sort of colony along a couple of sections of fence. It's gloriously beautiful when it blooms, and I love it. But no scent still seems so wrong!

The Mexican olive is a great little tree and blooms all summer. Look at all those buds! ...

I am so sad to see the damage to that lovely tree! Mother nature has been throwing some curveballs for the past two years. We are usually gasping for water.

Yes Pam, "usually gasping for water" ... that's why I can't complain about the hail, or the rain breaking the limbs of the Mexican olive. It's all part and parcel of drought ending. As my daughter is fond of saying, "Oh well, that's life in the big city".