Helianthemum Ben Fhada - Rock Rose

Helianthemum 'Ben Fhada' is a beautiful variety, with abundant and bright flowering, forming a dense carpet. Its small undulate cup-shaped flowers, bright yellow marked with a large halo of equally dazzling orange, bloom from May to September, with small leaves of very bright green with ashy reflections. This undershrub is hardy in well-drained soil and forms a pretty evergreen ground cover for the very sunny areas of the garden, such as rockeries or the top of a wall. It is a good plant for a dry or rock garden.

Belonging to the cistaceae family, Helianthemum 'Ben Fhada' is one of the horticultural hybrids of the 'Ben' series, resulting from the cross-breeding of Helianthemum apenninum, native to Southern Europe, and H. mummularium, widespread in Europe and Turkey. This one was developed in Scotland. Like its ancestors, 'Ben Fhada' loves limestone, rocky, sandy soils and the sun. It forms a very low, spreading and dense, cushion-like undershrub, 20 cm (7.9 in) high and 30 to 40 cm (11.8 to 15.7 in) wide. Its evergreen foliage is composed of very small linear leaves, fairly light green and slightly shiny, enhancing its abundant and bright yellow and orange flowering. From May-June to August-September, it is covered with a multitude of small flowers, 2.5 cm (1 in) in diameter, flat cups, with five petals, slightly crumpled, adorned with a bouquet of golden to orange stamens.

Helianthemum means in Greek "sunflower", an appropriate name for these flowers that only open in sunny situations. Its delicate little flowers do not last long, but constantly renew themselves, sometimes until autumn if the weather allows.

Helianthemum is the ideal plant to enhance a rocky garden, a sunny slope, cascading on a wall, in paving... It also adapts very well to cultivation in pots or containers for terraces. It can also be considered for the creation of vertical gardens and green roofs. Combine it with other rock plants (Erigeron, Gypsophila, Mount Olympus St. John's Wort), but also with perennial plants such as lavender, dryland iris, sedums, or perennial geranium macrorrhizum. Its flowers blend delicately with the grey foliage of stachys, dwarf artemisias, or ballota.