Silver-foliaged plants cope well with the heat and add interesting colour to the garden. They make an interesting contrast of foliage colour to garden beds.

Silver foliage looks particularly great with orange or blue-flowering plants.

Group plants together to get more of a wow effect and repeat the colour theme somewhere else in your garden.

Always plant into prepared soil with added compost, wetting agent and a small amount of slow-release fertiliser.

Those listed below are all hardy plants that will thrive in hot, dry conditions.

Some of my favourite silver foliaged plants are:  

•Olearia Little Smokie is a dwarf plant that only gets to 40cm in height and 30cm in width. It has soft, lemon-coloured flowers in summer and is a tough little native plant that enjoys full sun and minimum watering.

•Eremophila nivea Spring Mist has the most stunning mauve flowers against silvery-grey foliage. It is an improved form of E. nivea and often grafted on to a rootstock that copes with no more watering than once a fortnight. It grows to 1m in height and 60cm wide.

•Kalanchoe tomentosa is one of the succulent-looking plants with soft, furry silver foliage and stunning orange flowers on long stalks. Kalanchoes are hardy, drought tolerant and relatively easy to propagate from a leaf cutting.

•Santolina chamaecyparissus, known as cotton lavender, belongs to the chamomile family and is often used as a border plant. It gets to just 20cm in height and 30cm in width with bright yellow button flowers.

All of these plants are available from most nurseries.

 

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