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Ozothamnus leptophyllus 'Silver Cape' PP19,992 (Silver Shore Cottonwood) - A compact upright shrub to 3 feet tall and wide with tiny leaves attractively covered in silver-white fine hairs (tomentum) and spiraled tightly along the stem. The tiny flowers are not significant but emerge from pinkish white heads at branch tips spring through summer.
Plant in full sun with occasional to infrequent irrigation. Hardy to 20°F. This was a brand new plant for us in 2013, so there is yet much to learn about it but our hope was that it would to be a tough and attractive shrub for the garden and tolerant of dry poor soils and even seaside conditions - looks a bit like an upright growing Plecostachys which should be good to use with contrasting colored plants.
Ozothamnus leptophyllus 'Silver Cape' is a selection made by Lindsey Hatch of hybrids that resulted in a cross between several Ozothamnus leptophyllus that took place in cultivated area of Pukekohe, New Zealand in 2002. The selection was made over other selections and the species for reasons of its compact growth with more silvery and shorter leaves that are held in a spiral arrangement with very short internode lengths. This plant received US plant patent PP19,992 in May 2009. Ozothamnus leptophyllus is the current name for this native New Zealand species that was long called Cassinia leptophylla but most recently, reclassified as a Ozothamnus and by some combined with an Australian species as Ozothamnus lepidophyllus (Ilse Breitwieser & Josephine M. Ward (1997): Transfer of Cassinia leptophylla (Compositae) to Ozothamnus , New Zealand Journal of Botany, 35:1, 125-128). It is called Silver Cottonwood or by the Maori name Tauhinu and in New Zealand is a common shrub in coastal areas, including on sand dunes on both the North and South Island as well as Stewart Island. This plant is being marketed in the US by Ball Horticultural. Our plants and the accompanying image from Ball Horticulture.
It was a really interesting plant when young and fresh but it held old dried up foliage, making it look a bit messy so we discontinued growing it in 2014.
The information about Ozothamnus leptophyllus 'Silver Cape' PP19,992 that is displayed on this web page is based on research conducted in our nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We will also include observations made about this plant as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens that we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We also incorporate comments that we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they share cultural information that aids others growing this plant.
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