About
This compact, evergreen shrub features a bushy growth habit and leaves that are predominantly yellow, accented with green at the center. In summer, it produces white, saucer-shaped blooms that reveal yellow centers as they unfurl from red buds.
About the genus
Cistus consists of evergreen shrubs featuring simple, opposite leaves. They produce bowl-shaped flowers with five petals that can be white, pink, or purplish. Each flower lasts for just one day, blooming over an extended summer period.
Growing conditions
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Soil type
- Chalk, Loam, Sand
- Soil pH
- Acid, Alkaline, Neutral
- Soil moisture
- Well-drained
- Aspect
- South-facing, West-facing
- Exposure
- Sheltered
- UK hardiness
- H4
Plant details
- Plant type
- Shrubs
- Habit
- Bushy
- Foliage
- Evergreen
- Height
- 0.5-1 metres
- Spread
- 1-1.5 metres
- Time to full height
- 5-10 years
- Suggested uses
- City and courtyard gardens, Coastal, Cottage and informal garden, Gravel garden, Rock garden, Mediterranean climate plants
Care notes
- Cultivation
- Grows best in well-drained, poor, sandy, soil in a sheltered site in full sun. Generally lime-tolerant, but may become chlorotic on very chalky soils
- Pruning
- Pruning group 8; they do not respond well to hard pruning so old, leggy plants are best replaced. Pinch back young plants after flowering to encourage a bushy habit
- Propagation
- Root softwood cuttings form late spring to early summer; semi-ripe cuttings from midsummer to late summer
- Pest resistance
- Generally pest-free
- Disease resistance
- May be susceptible to honey fungus