Plant Library

Other Names:  Lavender Cotton, syn. Santolina virens

Description:

This very fine textured variety produces luminous yellow-chartreuse thread-like foliage, and yellow button flowers in summer; excellent color for winter interest; perfect accent in rock gardens or containers; shear back yearly to maintain compact growth

Ornamental Features

Lemon Fizz Santolina features showy spikes of lightly-scented yellow button flowers at the ends of the branches from early to mid summer. The flowers are excellent for cutting. It has attractive chartreuse foliage with hints of lime green which emerges yellow in spring. The tiny fragrant threadlike leaves are highly ornamental and remain chartreuse throughout the winter.

Landscape Attributes

Lemon Fizz Santolina is a dense multi-stemmed evergreen shrub with a mounded form. It lends an extremely fine and delicate texture to the landscape composition which should be used to full effect.

This shrub will require occasional maintenance and upkeep, and should only be pruned after flowering to avoid removing any of the current season's flowers. It is a good choice for attracting butterflies to your yard, but is not particularly attractive to deer who tend to leave it alone in favor of tastier treats. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Lemon Fizz Santolina is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Mass Planting
• Rock/Alpine Gardens
• Border Edging
• General Garden Use
• Groundcover
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Lemon Fizz Santolina will grow to be about 12 inches tall at maturity, with a spread of 18 inches. When grown in masses or used as a bedding plant, individual plants should be spaced approximately 15 inches apart. It has a low canopy. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 10 years.

This shrub should only be grown in full sunlight. It prefers dry to average moisture levels with very well-drained soil, and will often die in standing water. It is considered to be drought-tolerant, and thus makes an ideal choice for a low-water garden or xeriscape application. It is not particular as to soil type or pH, and is able to handle environmental salt. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America.

Lemon Fizz Santolina makes a fine choice for the outdoor landscape, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. It is often used as a 'filler' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination, providing a mass of flowers and foliage against which the thriller plants stand out. Note that when grown in a container, it may not perform exactly as indicated on the tag - this is to be expected. Also note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.