Looking for summer colour? Don’t overlook helianthemums, says Anne Swithinbank
SPANGLED with masses of rounded flowers in early summer, the lowly sun roses – or helianthemums – deserve closer inspection.
Blooms usually 1in (2.5cm) across are made of five thin petals with the fragile quality of slightly crinkled tissue paper.
There are over 100 species of these ground-hugging, mainly evergreen shrubs but in gardens we mostly grow the hybrids, usually involving European Helianthemum nummularium, a British native, and the Mediterranean Helianthemum apenninum.
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