Ceanothus
Ceanothus
Given a warm wall it flowers hard in May, but it will not forgive a cut back into bare old wood.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Blue
- Sunlight
- Full sun; a south or west-facing wall is ideal.
- Watering
- Drought-tolerant once established, and easily overwatered.
- Feeding
- Feeds itself — it fixes its own nitrogen, so leave the fertilizer alone.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- May
- Pruning
- Trim after flowering, and never cut into old bare wood.
- Mar–Mar Bud Break
- Mar–May Spring Growth
- May–Jul Flowering
- Jul–Dec Growing
- Jan–Mar Growing
- Plant spacing
- 8 ft 2 in
- In-row spacing
- 8 ft 2 in
- Between rows
- 10 ft 3 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody, with a taproot it keeps
- Working depth
- 24 in–5 ft
- Can reach
- 10 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 12–21 ft across, about 1.5–2.5× the width of the plant
It anchors downwards as well as sideways, which is what lets it stand in a gale and what makes it hate being moved. Plant it small: past a few years in the ground a taprooted tree transplants badly, and often not at all.
A nitrogen fixer with a deep taproot and a strong dislike of being disturbed, watered in summer or fed. Plant it small into poor sharp ground, and expect ten or fifteen good years rather than a lifetime.
The habit is Ceanothus’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Scale insects Immobile brown or white bumps fixed to stems and leaf undersides, sucking sap and weakening growth. Wipe off with a damp cloth or dab with horticultural soap; watch for the sooty mold that follows.
- Honey fungus A fatal root disease of woody plants: white fungal sheets under the bark and honey-colored toadstools at the base. Remove the plant with as much root and stump as possible.
- Frost damage Frost damage on the evergreen kinds
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Hoverfly SyrphidaeHunts Scale insects
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) CoccinellidaeHunts Scale insects
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
Lavender, Rosemary, Cistus
Green-leaved shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com