Now what can I use to build a evergreen border to shape a patio area behind the house? I can think of the sweetbay magnolia and I'm not sure it is evergreen in Z6. The tall shrub border will provide some privacy. It will be under the shade of deciduous shade trees that I have yet to plant....

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.

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

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