Tree Mallow
Lavatera olbia
Grows fast and loose — cut it hard each spring, or the wind will do the job less kindly.
Light Full sun, all day.
Water Handles drought well; watering is rarely called for.
Height 2 m
Spread 4 ft 11 in
Spacing 150 cm
Root depth 12–24 in
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Silver and gray · Green
- Flower color
- Pink
- Sunlight
- Full sun, all day.
- Watering
- Handles drought well; watering is rarely called for.
- Feeding
- Keep the feed away from it entirely.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- June
- Pruning
- Cut it back hard to 30 cm each April.
- Overwintering
- Hardy once grown, though young plants want cover in a severe frost.
- Apr–Apr Bud Break
- Apr–Jun Spring Growth
- Jun–Oct Flowering
- Oct–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Apr Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 4 ft 11 in
- In-row spacing
- 4 ft 11 in
- Between rows
- 6 ft 2 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody and fibrous
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 7.5–10 ft across, about 1.5–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 20 in of soil
A shallow woody framework with the fine feeding roots in the leaf litter above it. Those feeders are mostly under the outer half of the canopy rather than against the stem, which is where water and feed should go.
The habit is Tree Mallow’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.
Shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com