Achang89, I love all the sweet olives and their wonderful fragrance. Here is my experience with growing them in zone 6b.

I think you have to give up on Osmanthus fragrans in 6b unless you have some perfect, sheltered spot for it. I've tried with it several times, but unless you can keep it in a container and bring it indoors, sooner or later a bad winter will get it.

Instead you can use Osmanthus heterophyllus, or maybe Osmanthus armatus or Osmanthus sasaba. I have all these growing and blooming well here. I don't know where you lived before, but if it was frost free there, you could enjoy the sweet olive aroma through the fall and winter. Here in 6b, my Osmanthus bushes bloom from now until a really hard frost, more or less mid-November.

My Osmanthus fortunei is blooming right now -- wonderful fragrance. O. fortunei has beautiful foliage, but a bad winter can leave it looking kind of beat up in the spring compared with those other varieties. These are all relatives of the sweet olives you've grown which can give you fragrant shrubs for your new border and do all right under the shade trees, especially if they get a head start.

Mag. virginiana 'Henry Hicks' is supposed to be evergreen in z6, but it'll grow tall, and sweetbays don't usually grow thick enough to provide dense screening.

There are cultivars of mag. grandiflora, like Bracken's Brown Beauty, that are fully hardy in z6, but it would need full sun to look its best, and would also grow tall eventually.

How about some of the taller abelia cultivars? Not as strong a smell as osmanthus/jasmines, but it's similar.

Finally, lonicera fragrantissima is one of the best winter/spring scented shrubs ever, anywhere, and it stays kinda evergreen, though it may look a bit straggly, you can prune it any way you want, just like lonicera vines.

If you still miss your jasmines, grow 'em in pots on the patio, or plant some fragrant hostas under the shrubs!

Jim

I got two M. grandflora 'Bracken's Brown Beauty' and a few Osmanthus heterophyllus bushes. One BBB will be in front lawn and the other one at the back, near patio. The Osmanthus will define the parameter of the backyard.

Still searching for hardy gardenias. Anything else I should consider? Thx.