Low cushions of small evergreen leaves vanish under flat heads of bloom from late winter to late summer, depending on the variety. Candytuft (Iberis sempervirens) is one of the best ground covers for bed edges, garden boxes and rocky ground, and bees adore it: give it full sun and a sheltered spot, and it covers the soil all year.
| Name | Iberis |
|---|---|
| Family | Brassicaceae or Cruciferae |
| Type | flower, perennial |
| Height | 1 ½ feet (50 cm) |
| Exposure | full sun |
| Soil | light |
| Foliage | evergreen |
| Flowering | late winter to late summer depending on the variety |
Caring for it is easy and the ornamental properties of this plant make it perfect as ground cover.
Planting iberis or candytuft is best done either in spring or fall.
Remember to water regularly at the beginning, especially if you’re planting in spring.
Easy to care for, Iberis or Candytuft only requires very little attention.
When it has grown leggy and woody, the plant has trouble taking off again if you prune it back to old wood all at once. Candytuft, or Iberis, is very similar to lavender in this respect.
There are four options that you can try to return a leggy, woody candytuft to blooming in a nice, dense shape:
Whichever technique you prefer, be sure to prune your candytuft regularly afterwards! It’s the best way to ensure a nice, dense shape year after year!
It resists drought quite well and must only be watered during the first months after planting.
After that, no watering is necessary except in the event of extended dry spells.
Although this plant doesn’t quibble about the type of soil it is in, better add fertilizer when growing Iberis in pots.
Once the base has gone woody, cutting straight back to old wood rarely works. Here are the four routes the article describes, and what each one gives you.
| Method | What you do | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Hard pruning | Treat it exactly as you would an old, leggy lavender | Reshapes the existing plant, but old wood is slow to shoot again |
| Cuttings | Take cuttings from fresh, green tips | Young replacement plants instead of the tired parent |
| Layering | Layer a few branches, then remove the mother shrub a year later | Rooted young plants in place, as with lavender |
| Crown division | Divide the crown entirely, in summer | Triggers growth near the root crown on both original and new clumps |
Whichever route you take, prune regularly afterwards to keep the dense shape.
Most candytufts on sale are evergreen perennials for edges and rockeries, but a few annual species sown from seed give taller, scented heads in mixed colours. The table sets out the ones you are most likely to find, and what each is best at.
| Variety | Flower colour | Habit | Flowering | Best use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ‘Alexander’s White’ | White | Low, trailing | Spring | Cascading over walls |
| ‘Fairy Mixture’ | Mixed pink, mauve, white | Annual, dwarf and bushy | Summer | Sowing in gaps, child’s patch |
| ‘Autumn Snow’ | White | Spreading cushion | Spring and again in autumn | Long-season edging |
| ‘Little Gem’ | White | Dwarf, tight mound | Spring | Troughs, small rockeries |
| ‘Giant Hyacinth Flowered’ | White, scented spikes | Annual, upright and tall | Summer | Cutting, bee borders |
| ‘Snowflake’ | Pure white, large heads | Spreading cushion, medium | Mid to late spring | Bed edges, wall tops |
| ‘Purity’ | White | Compact, free-flowering | Spring, long display | Garden boxes, front of border |
This plant is called evergreen Iberis (Iberis sempervirens) because it bears cute evergreen leafage all year round.
This is a ground cover plant that makes it possible to cover any given ground surface throughout all of the seasons.
Its average hardiness means that candytuft requires certain temperatures during the blooming and it also fears freezing.
Best choose a sheltered spot to grow it.
But it can also be found in the wild, self-sown all around the Mediterranean water basin.
This plant will be particularly appealing along the edges of a flower bed, in a garden box, and also in rocky ground and atop a dirt mound.
Our friends the bees are big fans of this plant. Be sure to plant some if you’ve got a beehive in the garden!
Candytuft doesn’t need any watering in summer… this scores points for saving water and for our planet, too!
