For gardeners trying to conserve water, xeriscape gardening promotes the use of drought-tolerant plants. When it comes to xeriscape gardening, the ideal plant combines drought-tolerance with beauty, ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Gardens have been having a very testing spring. Garden watchers may have missed the difficulty of it. Apart ...

Ceanothus, nicknamed California native lilacs, aren’t related to “true lilacs” ( Syringa), which are native to southeastern Europe and eastern Asia. Fragrant like their lilac namesake, these ...

A good blue is a rare commodity in the garden, which is why California lilacs are so prized. With the best, such as Ceanothus 'Concha', the intense blue flower colour is heightened by a backdrop of ...

IF YOU’RE LOOKING for a plant that bears masses of spring flowers, stays green year round, takes little to no summer water and thrives on benign neglect, it’s hard to beat California’s wild lilacs ...

Four years ago, I wrote a column about my newly planted Ceanothus "Concha." I had chosen large plants over less costly small ones because, at my age, deferred gratification didn’t make much sense.

If Walt Whitman had lived in California, he might have written, "When ceanothus last in the dooryard bloom'd," for in California, it is the ceanothus that marks the "ever-returning spring." A native ...

Ceanothus is a fast grower – and there's one to suit every size of garden, says Marie Staunton Ceanothus There's a ceanothus to suit every size of garden, says Marie Staunton. I have no doubt you have ...

Then visit a new children’s garden at Kew and harden off bedding plants Plant this Blue doesn’t come more dazzling than the Californian lilac (ceanothus). Spring-flowering members of this clan of ...