California Gardening: Santolina (gray cotton lavender) photos & tips, 1 by jkom51

jkom51 wrote:
tkbell sent me a d-mail asking what my experience with this plant has been. We have 3 of them in various places in the garden.

This is an extremely xeric plant. It will live in those dry spots, sun or bright shade, where literally nothing else will. It behaves very similarly to lavender stoechas; excessive watering and rich soil make it flop over and eventually kill it.

I have had good luck with moderate pruning back, since unlike lavender it doesn't get woody (at least, not so far!). Ignorance is the key to this plant, the less you do it the happier it is. Putting it between 2 more upright plants seems to help support it in a mixed planting bed - see this one in the front yard between Aptenia cordifolia and a shrub Lantana. There are some dead parts to it I haven't cut out.