About this variety
Two beautiful things on one plant that look as though they should not belong together. The leaves and stems are thick with soft woolly silver-white hairs, felted like lambs' ears, and against them sit small flat flowers in a magenta-pink so saturated it looks lit from behind. It holds an RHS Award of Garden Merit.
The silver rosette is still there in January, which is worth something. Very few perennials give you foliage interest through a British winter, and this one does it without asking for anything.
Grow it as a colony rather than as a plant. Individually it is short-lived, two or three years, and the strategy is to let it seed itself: silver rosette in year one, flowers in year two, seedlings appearing round the parent by year three, and after that it looks after itself. It wants full sun and lean, sharply drained ground, and heavy wet soil is what kills it. Deadhead to extend the flowering, but leave some stems to set seed each year or the colony stops replacing itself.
