Photo by Enzie Shahmiri
When driving around in southern California, you can see Sea Lavender
, also known as Statice growing along the highways, by the ocean and in many gardens. Statice comes in a variety of colors such as purple, pink, yellow and white, but here the purple variety seems to be the most common.
Photo by Barbara
The plant has distinctive spiky flowers and simple or lobed leaves and can grow from one foot to large size bushes. The plant does best in sandy soil and this explains why it is such a popular plant around our California shores.
Statice can be dried and used as fillers with flower bouquets. All you have to do is cut a few stems, tie them at the ends and hand them upside down to dry. Learn more about how to dry flowers
. Since statice prefers sandy soil, you should add sand to your garden soil when you are ready to plant your seedlings. The plant prefers good drainage and prefer full sun. To assure nice growth add compost or a slow releasing fertilizer to the soil and cut back the flowers from time to time to encourage more blooming.
Photo by Photo by Jim FrazeeSea foam Statcie
