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Westringia longifolia (Winged Westringia) - This is an upright airy shrub to 6 feet tall by about 5 feet wide with soft green narrow leaves have slightly recurved margins. The 2-lipped flowers are pale mauve and emerge either in pairs or are solitary in the leaf axils near the branch tips with a flowering period primarily in the summer and fall, but a few flowers can often be found throughout the year.
It has proven to be a very drought resistant shrub for full sun or light shade and it is hardy to around 25° F . A nice airy shrub that is useful as an understory plant that may seed out in Bay Area gardens.
We received this plant from the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) Arboretum in 1988 (as Westringia linifolia) and grew it from 1990 to 2002 but though we had never seen this plant to be problematic, we stopped growing this plant when we were notified by Brett Hall at the UCSC Arboretum that they were having this plant seed out widely and considered it a potential weed species. We do continue to grow Westringia fruticosa and several cultivars of this species including the variegated formsWestringia fruticosa 'Morning Light' and Westringia fruticosa 'Smokey' and the low growing Westringia fruticosa Mundi as well as the hybrids Westringia 'Wynyabbie Gem', Westringia 'Wynyabbie Highlight' and Westringia Blue Gem.
This information about Westringia longifolia displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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