Teucrium fruticans

Our cloud gardens are full of teucrium. Its pale silvery leaves and small blue flowers steal the show, contrasting beautifully with darker green plants, and it takes to topiary better than almost anything we grow.

Teucrium fruticans is a Mediterranean native shrub from the southwestern Mediterranean — Spain, North Africa, Sardinia — with silvery-grey aromatic leaves and pale blue tubular flowers from spring through summer, typically March to August. The whole plant has a fresh aromatic scent, similar to rosemary with hints of citrus. The silvery foliage is fully evergreen and is the plant's main ornamental feature, retaining its colour and density throughout the year. Hardy to -8°C, exceptionally drought-tolerant, salt-tolerant and tolerant of poor stony alkaline soils, the shrub is one of the toughest silver-foliage plants for coastal and dry Mediterranean conditions, and tolerates severe shearing.

Tree germander reaches 1–2 m tall and as wide, ideal as a silver structural shrub in dry borders, as a clipped low formal hedge along paths and parterre edges, as a windbreak in coastal sites, and in large terracotta containers on hot terraces. The pale silver palette and pale blue flowers combine beautifully with the magenta of Cistus and Bougainvillea, the deep blue of Salvia rosmarinus, the chartreuse of Euphorbia characias, and the warm yellow of Bulbine frutescens. Excellent for creating the iconic silver-and-blue Mediterranean colour scheme alongside Lavandula, Convolvulus cneorum and Stachys byzantina. Clip lightly in late spring after flowering to maintain shape.