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Trachelospermum 'Pink Showers' (Pink Star Jasmine) – A new twist to the very popular fragrant fast growing semi-tropical evergreen white flowering star jasmine as this cultivar has PINK FLOWERS! 'Pink Showers' will grow as a vine, a shrub or groundcover with 2-inch-long elliptical leaves that first emerge a bright green color in early spring and darken to a leathery glossy dark green in time to be a foil for fragrant light pink blooms that first appear in mid to late spring and rebloom through summer hanging in clusters on outside branches. The individual flowers open over a long period providing an extended flowering and the petals and sepals on each are uniquely rolled back along the margins.
For the cultural aspects we are presuming this plant will be similar to the typical white flowering cousin Trachelospermum jasminoides. It should prove to be best planted in sun or part shade in soil with decent drainage and given occasional to infrequent summer watering - pretty drought tolerant along the coast but looks better with occasional irrigation. It will likely be heat tolerant in inland valleys and frost hardy to around 10° F, though leaves will probably turn bronzy in the winter with temperatures below freezing. It should respond to pruning or even shearing but care should be used to do so after flowering as the flowers are held on the previous year's growth. It is not as fragrant as its white flowering cousin so can be used growing closer to structures and living areas where the scent of Trachelospermum jasminoides might become overwhelming.
This beautiful plant was introduced in the US in 2007 by Ted Stephens, of Nurseries Carolina after he discovered it being grown in a specialty nursery in Japan. Mr. Stephens noted that he thought it had been brought to Japan from China by Mr. Akari Shibamichi, a well-respected Japanese plantsman. It first circulated in the US as a cultivar of Trachelospermum asiaticum, but more recently as a variety of our familiar Star Jasmine, Trachelospermum jasminoides, a species native to eastern and southeastern Asia, into Japan, Korea, southern China, and Vietnam. For more about this species, see our listing of Trachelospermum jasminoides. In many respects this plant does not closely resemble either of these species as it has thinner more delicate foliage and we believe it likely a hybrid between them.
We first got this very cool pink flowering Jasmine in the spring of 2017 from Xera Plants in Portland, Oregon. We purchased more stock plants from Ted Stephens of Nurseries Carolina later that same year and were selling it by 2020. There is a nice large espaliered plant on the west facing wall of the bathroom building next to our sales office.
This information about Trachelospermum 'Pink Showers' displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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