Garden shrubs - Lavatera

Lavateras are better known as mallows, and they are tall shrubs that were once highly popular in cottage gardens although they fell out of favour when the more feminine garden styles were replaced by the structural high drama of urban chic and zen styles. Laveteras can be either annual (propagated from seed) or perennial, which is the kind we are concerned with here. Their delicate flowers come in a range of colours form a very clear white through to soft pink to deep raspberry pink and a clear light purple, and some (not very hardy) species have variegated flowers.

Lavateras originate mainly from the Mediterranean, where the two metre tall shrubs are commonly seen growing wild and they look superb in an informal garden where they flower profusely from July to October. Given it’s natural habitat it is no surprise that this is a plant that prefers a well-drained, fertile soil and plenty of sunlight, but what a lot of people don’t realise, because it runs against normal plant behaviour, is that the Lavatera becomes more sensitive to frost the older it gets! This means that either you need to grow them in containers and take them indoors through the winter, including late frosts, or give them excellent frost proofing – growing them on a south facing wall will help as will putting down a good layer of compost around the plant for the winter months, to act as a mulch and a root insulator. Cut them back to about a metre tall and give them a frost-fleece or wrap them in bubble-wrap, but make sure that if the weather warms up they don’t start to rot inside any impermeable cover.

Lavatera photograph by photofarmer, used under a creative commons attribution licence

 

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