Help: Night jasmine growing healthy but no flowers

[greenaholic]

Hello all wonderful tree lovers and gardeners.
I am new to this forum and was guided during my introduction to this one.
My problem is that I have a night blooming jasmine (parijat ) and queen of the night aka Raat Rani (Cestrum nocturnum) in my garden.
Both the plants are growing healthy and are more than 1.5 FT in my 12 inch pot. The leaves are growing a lot and new branches have also come. However flowering is not happening.
Infact the parijat has growth over 2 ft and both the plants are watered regularly. I also fertilize with NPK 12-61-0 every 14 days.
I got these plants couple of months back from a nursery. What could be going wrong? The temperature here in Goa is warm and very ideal for these plants.

 

[Marck]

An otherwise healthy plant may not flower for a number of reasons.
How much sunlight do these plants get. Both plants you mention would want full sun, at least half a day.
Are other plant of these species blooming in your neighborhood?

 

[greenaholic]

Hi Marck.
Yes both the plants are present in my locality and they flower pretty well.
As far as sun light goes, they do receive it for 4 hours at least.
In fact it seemed very bright and intense to me, because the leaves seem to soften and feel like paper during afternoon and become usual after sun set. However all leaves are green and not changing to yellow
So I had to move the plants in a partial shade, fearing that the leaves were wilting.
So the issue of sun light does not seem to be there.
I water the plants almost daily but some times there is enough water in the soil so I skip.
I have given humic acid and NPK 12-61-0 once in 15 days.
Soil also has vermi compost.

 

[Marck]

Four hours of sunlight may not be enough. You might experiment with giving the plants more sunlight.

I'm not certain if you mean that the leaves wilt during the day, but if this is so, then this could be stressing the plant so that it does not have the vigor to flower.

The plants are still fairly small, perhaps as they get larger, they will become more floriferous.

 

[greenaholic]

HI again Marck.
So here's the confusion.
On one hand I get it when you say that 4 hours of sun light is not enough, that is easily resolved as my other plants get 5 + hours of sun and they are doing well.
I may as well shift these two plants there.
But then about the wilting.
Let me give you a clear account of my observation.
I generally water the plants when first half inch of soil feels totally dry (rough with no moisture at all ).
The watering mostly happens in the evening or seldum in the morning.
During the mid day, the leaves of these plants, specially night queen become very thin to touch and feels as if there is nothing left in them.
Very paper like but totally green and they don't droop or curl, just dry and thin.
IN the night and early morning they look better.
In the initial days when the plant was just a sapling, the leaves were small yet very thick and firm.
Another thing, when I sprinkle water on the leaves, they become slightly thick for a couple of hours even in intense sun light.
So now could you guess what could be happening here.
Lastly the plant is growing slowly and new leaflets are coming out every 3 or 4 days.

 

[Marck]

I'm not sure, but this thinning of the leaves may be a response similar to wilting.
Perhaps the plant would benefit from either being repotted into a larger container or planted in the ground.

 

[greenaholic]

Hi.
I already shifted it to a bigger pot.
So are you suggesting that it continue to get full sun light instead of partial shade?
If what I am noticing is not wilting then surely I may be doing more harm than good to keep it away from sun light.

 

[Marck]

Try giving it at least a little more light, but more light often requires more water as well.
I'm not certain if the plant is wilting or not, but the thinning of the leaves seems similar to wilt.

 

[greenaholic]

I just had a chat with a local expert.
Seems that it certainly will need more light.
Yes I will make sure to water it all the more.
What I am going to try is to keep it in bright sun light and in the noon sprey water on the leaves as well.