[Alisdair]

I'm surprised that though the forum is now four months old, with lots of activity, nobody has yet said much about cistuses and similar plants - such a wide range of drought-hardy plants, with such abundant and often showy flowers, and often the bonus of tremendous fragrance from their foliage, so evocative of Mediterranean summers.
Just to start the ball rolling, click here for Pamela's photo of Cistus x skanbergii, one of the easiest, tolerant of a wide range of alkalinity.

[Fleur Pavlidis]

Cistus x skanbergii grows into a nicely rounded bush - here on a slight bank.

[ritamax]

I have found it difficult to find cistus in garden centers on Costa Blanca South!

[Fleur Pavlidis]

Matters are no better in Greece, I'm afraid. We have two specialist (but totally unlabelled) nurseries which have our native cistuses somtimes and if ocassionally you find them elsewhere they're badly grown in plastic tubes with the roots firmly in the soil below. I got C. x skanbergii and C x pulverulentus by mail order from the Filippi nursery, while C purpurea 'Blushing Peggy Sammons' I carried home from England. I've taken cuttings of them all and planted them round the garden and now a kind friend has given me lots more cuttings which are coming along for potting on in the spring. It's a case of being your own nurseryman.

[Sandra]

I've taken the same approach as Fleur and have propagated Cistus for my Greek garden from cuttings taken in England. So far, this has worked really well as you can see from the photos taken last April.

[Alisdair]

Very nice pictures, Sandra; thanks!

[KatG]

Last year I bought 4 well-grown Cistus from a nursery in Kalamata. Unfortunately they had no labels, but they have settled in well and are just coming into flower, so I will now hope to be able to identify them.