Wild and woolly

Sun-loving woolly leaved plants provide fantastic foliage and often beautiful flowers

- Amateur Gardening

TOMENTOSE is the word used by botanists to describe plants with woolly leaves; tomentosum and lanuginosum are two of the Latin prefixes that most commonly apply to them. These plants are largely of Mediterranean origin and their felted leaves act as a protection against sun and drought in their natural habitats. In general, the felting or ‘wool’ consists of numerous fine silky hairs that reduce moisture loss from the leaves and in some plants trap and retain moisture.

Woolly leaved plants can make a valuable decorative contribution to the garden. They include the occasional tree, such as the silver-leafed ornamental pear Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’, whose willow-like foliage, cream-coloured flowers and attractive weeping habit make it a fine specimen tree for the smaller garden.

A valuable shrub with the characteristic flannelly leaf texture that deserves to be more widely grown is Ballota pseudodictamnus. This is one of the best for a silver-and-grey garden scheme, with close-packed rounded leaves covered in a white ‘wool’. It grows to only around 2ft (60cm) tall and the beauty of its foliage is greatly enhanced if it is pruned hard back each spring.

Specimen shrubs

Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum displays this woolly characteristic on the undersides of its leaves. This is one of the finest specimen shrubs for a large garden, growing up to 12ft (3.6m) tall with a spread of nearly half as much again. The branches are horizontal, with large heads of snowball flowers borne on their uppermost sides. There are also forms with flat ‘lacecap’ heads, of which ‘Lanarth’ is considered to be the finest.