Helianthemum Tomato Red - Rock Rose

Helianthemum hybrida Tomato Red is a shrub with beautiful grey foliage on which bloom numerous single flowers in shades of orange and red, vibrant in colour, giving this variety a lot of charm. This evergreen subshrub tolerates heat and summer drought well. It flowers all summer, as long as faded flowers are regularly removed, even in poor and rocky soil. A very pretty, hardy and floriferous variety that will form an attractive ground cover in sunny areas of the garden, such as rockeries or the top of a wall.

Belonging to the Cistaceae family, Helianthemum 'Tomato Red' is one of the many hybrids between H. apenninum, native to southern Europe, and H. mummularium, widespread in Europe and Turkey. Like its ancestors, 'Tomato Red' loves chalky, rocky, sandy soils and the sun. It forms a low, spreading and dense shrub, about 25 cm (10 in) high and 40 cm (16 in) wide. Its evergreen foliage is compound, with tiny linear leaves, quite dark green, covered with little hairs that give it a silvery appearance, especially when it is hot and dry; this highlights its abundant and bright, almost tomato red, blooms. From May-June to August-September it is covered with a multitude of small 3 cm (1.2 in) diameter cup-shaped flowers, with five slightly crumpled petals, adorned with a cluster of golden to orange stamens.

Helianthemum means "flower of the sun" in Greek, an appropriate name for these flowers that only open in bright sunlight. Its delicate little flowers do not last long, but constantly renew themselves, sometimes until autumn if the weather allows it.

The rockrose is the ideal plant to enhance a rockery or sunny slope, to cascade over a wall, or brighten up paving. It also thrives in pots or containers for terraces and can be considered for the creation of green walls and green roofs. Combine it with other rock plants (Erigeron, Gypsophila, Mount Olympus St. John's Wort, Teucrium, silver baskets), as well as perennial plants like lavender, rosemary, dry ground iris, sedums, or of course, cistus. Its flowers blend delicately with the grey foliage of stachys, artemisias or ballota.