RE: Suggestions for hedge please.

Title: RE: Suggestions for hedge please.

What about some of the area's native evergreen shrubs? Spanish broom (Spartium junceum) grows about 3 m high with sweetly scented yellow flowers. Shrubby sage (Salvia fruticosa, syn. S. triloba) grows 1-2 m tall with lilac flowers. Maybe some of the larger rock roses: Cistus salviifolius grows to 2 m with white flowers; C. ladanifer about the same with fragrant, gummy leaves and white flowers with a purple-black petal blotch. I'm not sure if oleander (Nerium oleander) is native in the western Mediterranean, but it's as tough as old boots and very colorful in flower, with a long flowering period. These plants would need little or no irrigation after their first year or two. Other thoughts: strawberry tree (Arbutus andrachne), to about 5 m, with white flowers and red, edible berries in autumn; tree heather (Erica arborea), to 3 m with masses of white flowers in spring. Perhaps you could punctuate with the occasional dwarf fan-palm (Chamaerops humilis); it eventually reaches 2 m or so tall. There are many other native shrubs, especially various "brooms" in the pea family.

Nick



Nick Turland
Flora of China Project, Missouri Botanical Garden,
P.O. Box 299, St. Louis, MO 63166-0299, U.S.A.
E-mail: Nicholas.Turland@mobot.org
Phone: +1 314 577 0269 Fax: +1 314 577 9438
MBG web: http://www.mobot.org
FOC web: http://flora.huh.harvard.edu/china/
Flora of Crete Supplement:
http://www.marengo.supanet.com/text/fcs.htm

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