Ceanothus

Ceanothus is an American native, growing mostly in California. It thrives on rocky or sandy soil and is resistant to salt as well as to drought. Soil that is too humid or a location with too much shade will shorten its life expectancy – which is only around 10 years anyway.

The colors of Ceanothus flowers range from the palest to the deepest blues and there are also white and pink cultivars. I chose the cultivar “Ceanothus x arboreus Concha” for having very deep blue flowers and planted it in the fall of 2023 as a small shrub.

Since then it has quadrupled in size to about 125x125cm and I’m curious to see if it will reach its fully grown size of 300x300cm next year.

My Ceanothus Concha blooms from mid-March through the end of April and the bees love those marvelously deep blue flowers – a color the camera can’t really fully capture.

It tolerates summer heat and drought when established and only showed some light-green and yellow leaves during the height of last summer. By September it looked healthy and green again. Olivier Filippi gives it a code de secheresse of 4/6. After the second year it is enough to water it twice a month, only during periods of drought. It is not necessary and even detrimental to feed it. It can be trimmed after flowering to keep a compact form and encourage the development of branches – severe trims should be avoided.

Other cultivars of Ceanothus are “thyrsiflorus”, “impressus”, “prostratus”, “pallidus”, “delilianus”, “Burkwoodii”, “griseus”, etc.