Ericta，your plant, I think, has got some damage on its root sysytem. This could be resulted by two thing, 1. you put too much water so the soil in pot is too wet that the root system cannot breath well. 2.Osmanthus like acidic soil, and in most cases, after long time of watering, the soil's ph become higher, that also damage root.

I know there is an Osmanthus fragrans 'Aurantiacus' at Clemson University that went through the terrible cold SC had in the mid-80's. It took -4F with windchills well below 0,with very little leaf burn. It does seem to be more cold hardy than regular fragrans. The 'Fudingzhu' in my garden took 14F with a windchill of 6F this past winter and didn't seem hurt at all. Of course the length of the cold weather seems to be what determines the degree of damage. If you had severe cold for 5-6 days straight, the plant would probably receive more damage. I do remember that some of the Osmanthus fragrans(plain old white one) lost foliage in the mid 80's, but I don't remember any of them actually being killed, which is more than I can say for some Camellias, Eucalyptus, Loquats etc. I sure hope we don't see those kind of temps again. If you have an area of your garden that is a bit protected you might try planting it there in the spring so it would have a long season to put down a good root system. I hope you do well with it. The fragrance of 'Aurantiacus' is a bit more intense than 'Fudingzhu', but oh the 'Fudingzhu' blooms so much more.

Robert, Thanks. The fragrance was a bit stronger. Perhaps the fragrance will get stronger as it gets bigger with more blooms growing in the ground. I got email back from the nursery saying it's very fragrant so who knows? Time will tell. I wonder how they discovered this plant? Thanks Jodik. It sure is a nice surprise. I thought I'd have to wait 2-3 years for that to happen. Lol. Money well spent!

Hi... you say you're looking into various bonsai resources, but apparently haven't actually practiced it in the past (and buying a 'kit' somewhere that is almost guaranteed to last a short time is not experience - I realize you didn't do it yet). For your sake and the trees' look for a local club to join and start reading all you can - there are loads of books (used ones on Amazon are cheap) - because bonsai is not something you can learn in an afternoon or even a month. To keep even the easiest tree alive for any real length of time requires knowledge, practice, very often special environmental conditions, and a long learning curve which most trees can't survive without proper care. At this point, never mind the osmanthus... or any one species, but do try to pick up all you can before making decisions as each tree has different needs and knowledge - wait til you can make an informed decision. This post was edited by moochinka on Sat, Dec 6, 14 at 17:39