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7 shrubs with silver-grey foliage every garden should have
Choosing planting

7 shrubs with silver-grey foliage every garden should have

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Modified the 13 August 2025  by Virginie T. 6 min.

Shrubs with silver-grey foliage are so extraordinary that they deserve to be chosen on that criterion alone!

Generally undemanding and tolerant of sun and sea spray, these shrubs are often indispensable in dry gardens and recommended on the coast. Their beautiful silver foliage brightens, blends with pastel hues and tones down the brightest colours. They always add a touch of elegance and purity to the garden. In some cases, stem colour or colourful flowering displays bring considerable added value.

Here are some of the most striking shrubs for their colouring.

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Buddleia 'Silver Anniversary'

This variety of butterfly tree has tomentose, bright silvery-grey foliage that really sets it apart from classic Buddleias. This handsome shrub develops pubescent leaves that remain more or less persistent depending on climate. From August to October, branches are covered with terminal panicles of small, compact, white, fragrant flowers that attract many butterflies. Less hardy than Buddleia davidii, it tolerates down to around -7°C. A modest-sized variety particularly suited to small spaces and container growing, especially in colder regions. Undemanding about soil type, it likes all well-drained soils, even poor and calcareous, and thrives in sunny, not-too-windy positions. In a shrub border, it will be a good partner for yellow-flowering potentillas with which it will create a strong contrast. Its grey foliage will bring a soft tonality in perfect harmony with the pink or lilac shades of phlox, hardy geraniums or lavenders.

buddleia silver anniversary

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Elaeagnus commutata 'Zempin'

This silverberry, with a lunar charm, brings a real source of light to the garden! It quickly forms a handsome, well-branched shrub with a supple habit, reaching up to 4 m in height and 3 m across. An Elaeagnus Zempin shrub is noticeable from afar thanks to the brightness and lustre of its deciduous, downy grey-silver foliage, always in motion and sparkling at the slightest ray of sun. Its narrow leaves display a beautiful muted grey colour on the upper surface, with a silver, shiny underside. From May to June it produces abundant, if inconspicuous, flowers with a spicy scent. It tolerates any ordinary, well-drained soil, even poor ones. With its resistance to severe cold, wind, sea spray and drought, this Elaeagnus has a place in all gardens, coastal or dry. It will be superb planted as a specimen, in large silvery drifts or in an attractive windbreak hedge along the coast, alongside other fine shrubs such as Abelia x grandiflora, Buddleia alternifolia ‘argentea’, Amelanchier ovalis or Cistus laurifolius.

Elaeagnus Zempin

Hebe pimeleoides 'Quicksilver'

Hebe pimeleoides ‘Quicksilver’ is a small shrubby veronica notable for the contrast between its evergreen silvery grey-green foliage and its intensely purple-coloured stems. From June to July it produces spikes of blue-lavender flowers that last throughout summer. The plant forms a compact, spreading shrub up to 90 cm across of great elegance. It is easy to grow in partial shade or full sun in rich but very well-drained soil where it will tolerate down to -15°C. With a modest height of 45 cm and a spread of 90 cm, it is ideal as a groundcover, at the front of a border, with cotoneasters, ceanothuses or forsythia, in a rockery or in a pot (it will simply require regular watering during active growth).

Hebe pimeleoides 'Quicksilver'

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Sea buckthorn Pollmix (Hippophae rhamnoides)

This thorny shrub (Hippophae rhamnoides ‘Pollmix’) is very decorative thanks to its slightly gnarly habit, very branched upright stems and its fine deciduous foliage, dark green above and silvery grey beneath. Fast-growing (around one metre per year), this bushy shrub will reach 3 to 5 m in height. Although very ornamental, this male variety will never bear fruit: small, edible, bright orange autumn berries known as sea-buckthorn berries. It is one of the hardiest and most accommodating shrubs. Very hardy, able to withstand down to -30°C and also tolerating drought, indifferent to soil type, it thrives in full sun in all soils, even poor ones. In ornamental gardens it is planted in informal hedges, defensive hedges or as a specimen. In a shrub border of silvery-grey tones, pair it with the Perovskia ‘Silvery Blue’ and Salix exigua.

Sea-buckthorn 'Pollmix'

Santolina chamaecyparissus

Here is silver santolina, a very robust santolina species. It is a very handsome Mediterranean evergreen and hardy shrub that immediately evokes Midi sunshine. This species forms attractive small cushions 20 to 40 cm high and about 40 to 80 cm across. Its woody stems are covered with a soft, silvery-grey, aromatic foliage, giving off a powerful scent of olive oil and turpentine. With Santolina chamaecyparissus, the leaves are finely divided and very dentate, resembling cypress scales, hence its nickname “little-cypress santolina”. They are covered with a thick white felting. On this rounded shrub small golden-yellow heads appear throughout summer.

Adapted to drought, Santolina is the quintessential dry-garden plant. It thrives in full sun in any very well-drained soil, even stony or rocky. Plant it in a rockery or on a dry, poor bank, where it will remain unfazed by sun and heat. Also ideal as a silver accent within a planting, in a formal border or in a pot on the terrace.

In a composition evoking garrigue, it will create a picture of handsome grey foliage when paired with an Artemisia, Helichrysum italicum and lavenders.

silver santolina

Salix lanata

Wooly willow is a bushy, compact shrub with knotted wood. Small and fairly slow-growing, it reaches 1 m in height with a 1.5 m spread. Its appeal comes primarily from its wooly, dark green-grey matt foliage. In spring, it is crowned with large, quite spectacular golden and grey-yellow aments.

Accustomed to very harsh climates, it is very hardy and thrives in sun in very well-drained but cool borders. This willow, well suited to small gardens, is equally delightful planted alone, in a border or in a rockery. For example, it can be paired with perennials and shrubs such as mountain savoury, Santolina chamaecyparissus, Cytisus purpureus and Arabis.

wooly willow

Caryopteris (x) clandonensis 'Sterling Silver'

This caryopteris hybrid stands out for its particularly luminous silvery-grey deciduous foliage. As with other caryopteris, it is very aromatic when crushed. This light, fragrant growth forms a beautiful setting for its late-season flowering, in airy clusters of a fairly bright blue. It forms a small, bushy, rounded, well-branched shrub 1–1.2 m high and about 90 cm wide. It is a sun-loving plant for well-drained, even dry soil, and proves hardy to around −15 to −20 °C in these conditions. Plant this voluptuous, elegant shrub in a very sunny border, a large rock garden, or in a low hedge alongside other undemanding summer-flowering shrubs such as yellow shrubby potentillas, Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, lavenders or dwarf buddleias.

caryopteris sterling silver

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bushes with silver leaves