Santolina magonica is the most dwarf, the most tidy and the most silver of all the cotton lavenders, growing into a rounded evergreen shrub, some 35cm tall by 45cm across, with leaves like small. Intensely-silver feathers. The yellow button flowers, opening from lemon green buds, make a lovely contrast with the foliage during late spring and early summer. It is happy in any sunny spot and is drought tolerant when once established.
We imported this fine plant from Olivier Filippi’s famous nursery in the south of France twenty ago. It is highly rated by Filippi in his popular book on dry climate gardening, The Dry Gardening Handbook: Plants and Practices for a Changing Climate.