Coronilla valentina subsp. glauca

Coronilla valentina Glauca, also known as the Glaucous Coronilla, is a small Mediterranean shrub, perfectly adapted to dry and hot climates, low-maintenance and undemanding. Its evergreen foliage is a beautiful green-blue colour, but it is mainly for its abundant spring flowering, nectar-rich and highly fragrant, that it is invited into the garden. Hardy down to -12°C (10.4 °F), it forms a lovely, dense ball with a natural yet neat appearance, covered in bright yellow pea flowers. This plant will make a sensation in a large pot on the terrace, to be protected in very cold regions, and will be perfectly suited to a dry garden in a milder climate.

Coronilla valentina subsp. glauca is a shrub of the fabaceae family, a cousin of perennial peas, perfectly adapted to poor, dry, and chalky soils. It is native to the Mediterranean basin, found in the wild in the south of France, as well as in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sicily, Greece, Algeria, and Morocco. In nature, it grows on the edge of woods and on limestone slopes. It is a bushy shrub, dense and rounded, reaching about 1m (3 ft 4 in) in height and 75cm (29.5 in) in width, sometimes more, with fairly rapid growth but a relatively short lifespan of about 10 to 12 years. Flowering takes place in April-May. The Bright yellow, and nectar-rich, flowers are tightly packed together in circular inflorescences at the ends of the branches. Their sweet and floral scent perfumes a whole area of the garden. The evergreen foliage is composed of leaflets divided into 2-3 pairs, of a green-blue colour.

This attractive shrub can be used in flowerbeds or rockeries, in a yellow, blue, and white flowerbed for example, in the company of blue rosemary, creeping ceanothus, caryopteris, perovskia, convolvulus cneorum, scilla peruviana, or grape hyacinths, but also on the edge of a clear woodland with Phlomis samia, periwinkles, Acanthus, and Geranium macrorrhizum. It is perfectly adapted to drought and resistant to salt spray. It will excel in a rocky or sandy garden, where few plants are willing to grow. Create an evergreen flowerbed to accompany your coronilla, by mixing the foliage and scents of lavender, silver wormwood, blue rosemary, and thyme. Add Californian poppies, a trailing rose (Rosa Grouse), and dryland euphorbias with a compact conifer for some dynamism in your composition. You can plant it directly in the ground (with proper drainage) in many regions, however, for colder climates, growing it in large pots is perfectly possible; in which case, pay close attention to drainage and water abundantly but sparingly, allowing the substrate to dry out between waterings.