Santolina chamaecyparissus

There are a few Santolinas (Santolinas) available to enhance your garden. Most of them come with handsome silvered or rich green foliage and most of them grow in neat mounds requiring little or no pruning. Although they do bloom with bright yellow or cream colored button-like flowers, I feel their greatest contribution is in their well-behaved habit of growth.

Lavender Cotton will create an instant bush, spreading low and filling in areas with easy care grace. It can be used as a groundcover, a formal shrub, a background plant or a complement to sword shaped foliage. The Santolina chamaecyparissus creates a soft silver-blue foil to the bright blooms of flowering plants, a light background for darker green or red foliage, and looks fresh and happy all year ’round (something hard to find in any plant!) The Santolina virens (Green Lavender Cotton) provides a similar soft green cloud with its finely cut foliage. The blooming period is quite short, but the Lavender Cottons will smother themselves with polka-dots of bright or pale yellow that can cheer up the garden design.   Quite drought tolerant, these plants will also thrive on the regular watering of an average flower garden. They love hot, full sun, but will tolerate a little dappled shade as well. In short, the Lavender Cotton plants are easy to grow and quite adaptable.

For garden designing purposes, their contained, mounded form is ideal for filling corners or flowing into odd areas.  Design with Santolina to counter the rough forms of wild  hillsides, to create peaceful areas in busy flower gardens, and to create the soft shapes needed within an Asian design. A hardy and tolerant plant, Lavender Cotton will perform for many years before its stems become too woody and gnarled to be attractive. (Although, in certain styled gardens, the gnarled look may actually be an asset.)

Also see:

The Five Spot Flower (Nemophila Maculata)

Japanese Blood Grass (Imperata)

Zebra Grass (Miscanthus zebrinus)

Growing and Designing with Euryops (Daisy Bush)

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.