The best Mediterranean plants for effortless colour, fragrance, and a garden buzzing with pollinators
Plants native to Mediterranean climate zones are amazingly diverse and include many that are hardy in the UK
Plants native to Mediterranean climate zones are amazingly diverse and include many that are hardy in the UK.
Give the best climate-resilient plants a sunny spot in a Mediterranean-style garden with good drainage, and their unique character can be enjoyed.
From Phillyrea latifolia to Buddleja globosa, we have sought out some of the most sparkling plant gems to give your garden a summer feel.
The best plants for a Mediterranean-style garden
1. Arbutus unedo
This small, adaptable evergreen tree grows wild in both Greece and south-west Ireland. It bears small, white, bell-shaped flowers in autumn alongside fruit from the previous year’s pollination. Not all the flowers are fertilised, so the resulting fruit is widely spaced, as if hung deliberately like Christmas baubles. They ripen red and look like strawberries, but the species name is apt – unedo derives from the Latin for ‘I eat only one’.
This ericaceous plant copes with alkaline soils, provided drainage is perfect. You can also plant it in a large, well-draining pot with loam-based compost, like John Innes from Amazon mixed with ericaceous compost.
2. Epilobium californica
Not strictly a Mediterranean plant, but this Californian perennial is suited to a similar climate. Formerly known as Zauschneria californica, it has narrow silvery leaves. The bright, orange-red tubular flowers with protruding stamens appear from July to September and look like small hummingbirds.
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Tidy the rather wiry plants in spring by cutting back to new growth near the base. If perfect drainage in open ground is impossible, try raising in a pot. ‘Western Hills’ is a good cultivar to look for.
3. Pinus pinea
Of all the conifers, pines have been in the ascendant for a few years now, regularly cropping up in on-trend gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show. This one has been grown since prehistoric times for its edible pine nuts. It emits the classic pine fragrance and gradually assumes an umbrella profile. Encourage the latter by pruning out the lower branches in the first few years.
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It eventually reaches about 20m in height, with a trunk encased in beautiful orange-brown fissured bark. For smaller spaces, try a cultivar of the dwarf mountain pine such as Pinus mugo ‘Ophir’.
4. Phillyrea latifolia
This large shrub, a cousin of the olive, slowly grows into a beautiful small tree. An ancient specimen in Montpellier Botanic Gardens, with a gnarled and knotted trunk, serves as a post box for love letters. More prosaically, it is useful as a screen and to light up the winter garden with its thick, glossy leaves.
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Team with other evergreens such as Rhamnus alaternus ‘Argenteovariegata’ and Viburnum tinus or underplant with the Corsican hellebore (Helleborus argutifolius). In smaller spaces, try medium-sized Phillyrea angustifolia.
5. Buddleja globosa
Chile is perhaps one of the lesser-known Mediterranean climate zones and is home to this unusual buddleja with orange-yellow flowers forming tight balls held in clusters at the tips of arching stems. These are sweet-scented and borne from May to July.
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This semi-evergreen shrub can reach 5m in height. Unlike Buddleja davidii, which needs hard pruning in spring, you can keep this species in check by trimming after flowering.
6. Salvia officinalis
The common sage looks especially good with other dry-garden stalwarts such as santolina, nepeta, calamintha, and artemisia. Each sage leaf is covered in hairs that reflect the sun’s rays and trap a layer of moist air close to the leaf – an adaptation to reduce water loss in its natural habitat.
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From early to mid-summer, it produces attractive mauve flowers above a spreading mound of silver-grey leaves. Grows best in poor, free-draining soil. If you want to ring the changes and try something new, try its close relation, Salvia candelabrum or any of the hardy, herbaceous types.
7. Myrtus communis
Myrtle has long been revered as a medicinal plant and contributes to the powerful scent of the maquis of Corsica. It’s an evergreen shrub bearing large, cream flowers with a central boss of protruding stamens in summer. White berries follow these.
It can withstand clipping and is used as low hedging in the famous Court of the Myrtles at the Alhambra in Granada. It is worth finding a sheltered spot to enjoy its fruity scent.
8. Yucca gloriosa
This evergreen shrub is from the south-eastern United States and, strictly speaking, not a Mediterranean climate plant, but it is very drought-tolerant and has become naturalised in places like Italy and Malta. It certainly has the ‘look’. It is truly architectural with rosettes of stiff, gutter-shaped, spine-tipped leaves and, in late summer, branching spikes of bell-shaped, creamy white flowers up to 2m in height.
The straight species has green leaves, but in the cultivar ‘Variegata’ they are striped and edged creamy yellow. Both plants have been given a Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit.
9. Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii
A highly architectural and garden-worthy spurge that grows to about 1.5m tall. Flower heads that hang low in January open as acid green spikes in spring. On a hot summer day, you can hear a clicking sound as the seedpods explode and disperse seed far and wide – the progeny will vary in form, leaf, and flower colour.
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Prune tatty, faded flowering stems back to the base, but wear gardening gloves – the white latex sap of euphorbia is an irritant.
10. Lavandula x intermedia ‘Grosso’
The evaporation of essential oils from the leaves of aromatic plants such as lavender cools them and prevents sun scorch. The aroma this creates adds another dimension to a garden, and this hybrid, with profuse and early luminous purple flowers, is particularly strongly scented.
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The flowers’ stems are long and good for cutting. Most lavender oil produced in France is from fields of this variety. Keep it from getting leggy by shearing back in mid-August.
A beautiful Mediterranean garden is incomplete without a stunning parasol for shade. We’ve rounded up some of the best statement summer parasols that include this breathtaking green octagon outdoor parasol from Soho Home with the most distinctive fringing.
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