Silver Bush (Calocephalus) is a small round shrub with eye-catching, hairy twigs that have a pretty silvery appearance. From a distance it looks just like barbed wire, but beautiful and without the painful barbs! The plant flowers yellow in August and September but the main attraction is undoubtedly its silver-grey foliage, which combines beautifully with blue and white autumn violas, checkerberry, pink Cyclamen, prickly heath and Skimmia. Silver Bush also works very well in autumn hanging baskets.
Eye-catcher from the bush
Silver Bush is native to the rocks and dunes of Australia’s southern coast. In the wild the shrub can reach a height of around one metre – the cultivated variety stays smaller. The plant is a member of the Asteraceae family and is very easy to live with: it can cope with a bit of drought, survives sea breezes and thrives in rockeries. It’s also a plant that tickles the curiosity, not only because of its attractive silver-grey colour, but because of its ability to constantly surprise you with new dimentions in its tangled structure.
Silver Bush trivia
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Silver Bush’s suffix is 'brownii', which refers to the botanist Robert Brown who discovered the plant in 1817.
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In Australia Silver Bush is also called cushion bush, because the twigs used to be used as filling for mattresses and cushions.
