Description
Santolina –
There are 5-18 frost hardy evergreen hummock forming shrubs, in the Asteraceae family, in this genus. They naturally occur in dry, rocky habitats in the Mediterranean. They produce alternate, smooth edged, pinnatisect, or pinnate, hairy, aromatic, silver gray leaves, and tiny flowers borne on long stemmed, dense, button like heads, surrounded by several rows of involucral bracts. Each floret is tubular and yellow or white, there are no ray florets. They are grown mainly for their ornamental and aromatic foliage, and are suitable for a mixed or shrub border, or a rock garden, or as an edging or low hedge.
Grow in poor to moderately fertile, well drained soil in full sun, resent overly wet winters.
Prone to the larvae of some Lepidoptera.
S. chamaecyparissus – S. incana – Lavender Cotton – Cotton Lavender – This compact, rounded shrub form coastal areas of the Mediterranean grows 18-20″ tall and 3-4′ feet wide. From white woolly young shoots, it produces a lot of slender, narrowly oblong, toothed to pinnatisect, gray white leaves, 1 ½” long, with very fine, toothed divisions. Bright rounded yellow flower heads, to 3/4″ across, are borne on slender stems in mid and late summer.
Zones 6-9
