Cistus albidus

The Cistus albidus is known as the cottony rockrose or white rockrose due to the very light colour and fluffy appearance of its foliage. This small native bush from Mediterranean scrubland offers a lovely pink flowering in spring, perfectly enhanced by the foliage. The foliage remains attractive in winter. Provide this beautiful plant with sunny, even limestone and arid rockery in summer. Where it thrives, the cottony rockrose can self-seed abundantly.

The Cistus albidus belongs to the Cistaceae family, like all rockroses, but also like sunroses. It is a botanical species native to the western Mediterranean Basin, spontaneous in rocky, limestone to very limestone soils. In France, it is found throughout the Mediterranean region. The cottony rockrose is a well-branched small bush with a rounded habit, reaching between 80 cm and 1 m in all directions. Its growth is relatively fast, but the plant disappears after about ten years. Flowering occurs in spring, from late March to late May, depending on the climate. It lasts for three weeks to a month. The 5 cm in diameter flowers, with round, slightly crumpled corollas, are a bright pink, enhanced at the centre by numerous bright yellow stamens. The petals slightly overlap. They only live for a day but will be replaced the next morning. The evergreen foliage comprises small, thick leaves covered with a light grey, almost white, fuzz in summer. In case of intense summer drought, some of the leaves may dry out.

This delightful bush for rockeries and poor soils is perfectly adapted to drought and hardy down to -12/-15°C at its lowest in dry soil. It will be magnificent on a dry slope or in a large rockery bathed in sunlight. Create a persistent bed to accompany your rockrose, evoking the scrubland by mixing the foliage and scents of lavenders, creeping rosemary, thymes, teucriums, and other aromatic perennials. Add, for example, California poppies and drought-tolerant euphorbias to bring some dynamism to your composition. You can plant this rockrose in coastal gardens: it perfectly withstands sea spray.