Best plants for a Mediterranean garden

What is a Mediterranean garden?

Drought-tolerant plants originating from and around the Mediterranean basin are at the heart of this low-maintenance style of gardening. Many Mediterranean species have adaptations to enable them to survive prolonged dry conditions such as silvery leaves to reflect light and heat away from the plants and thick waxy leaf coatings to reduce water loss. Dry, sunny gravel gardens provide an ideal habitat for these plants from the Mediterranean region to thrive, creating a loose, naturalistic aesthetic, especially where perennials are allowed to self-seed in the gravel.

How do you recreate a Mediterranean garden design?

Mediterranean gardens often have shaded seating areas with plants in terracotta pots, surrounded by drifts of fragrant herbs. Water features are another central element, helping enhance the tranquil atmosphere. The combination of scented plants and the serene sound of water creates a beautiful sensory space. This elegant design style tends to use a small number of plants repeated throughout, rather than combining a large variety of species. Using a restricted colour palette such as blues, purples, silvers and white, alongside some brighter pops of colour, also adds to the sense of sophistication and relaxation.

Here are some of our favourite plants to help you create your own Mediterranean-style garden:

Best Mediterranean plants for a UK garden

Italian cypress

These elegant conifers are ideal to create evergreen structure in a dry sunny spot. Italian cypress can be clipped to maintain its sleek columnar form and, for smaller gardens, there are compact varieties that won't reach more than around 6m in height.

• Buy Italian cypress from Crocus, J.Parker's and YouGarden

Citrus tree

Few plants are as successful at creating the Mediterranean look as a citrus tree. Whether you grow lemons, oranges or limes, your tree should thrive in a sheltered, sunny spot and will require frost-free conditions over winter. Citrus trees create a real impact in terracotta pots on either side of an entranceway, and they also grow well in conservatories, greenhouses and in front of a south- or west-facing wall.

• Buy citrus trees from Dobies, Suttons and Thompson & Morgan

Bay tree

Bay trees are another excellent evergreen for a Mediterranean-style garden, with the advantage of aromatic leaves that can be used in cooking. They're often clipped into lollipops, cones or pyramids, and can be grown in containers, though they're usually hardier when planted directly into the garden.

• Buy bay trees from Crocus, Dobies and Van Meuwen

Myrtle

This half-hardy shrub has fragrant white flowers in summer and grows best in a sunny, sheltered spot. Myrtle is ideal as a container plant so it can be brought under cover in the winter. Good to create evergreen structure and delicious scent on a south- or west-facing patio.

• Buy myrtle from Crocus, Suttons and Pennard Plants

Lamb's ear

Soft, tactile lamb’s ear is a superb perennial for a sunny spot. It attracts pollinating insects to its pinky-purple flowers, and wool carder bees favour it for the furry hairs on the leaves, which they use to line their nests. It's a low-maintenance plant, great for gravel gardens and mixed borders.

• Buy lamb's ear from Crocus, Suttons and Thompson & Morgan

Cotton lavender

This compact evergreen shrub provides year-round interest with its silvery foliage and a bright burst of sunshine with its yellow button flowerheads in summer. Cotton lavender (Santolina chamaecyparissus) is ideal for a sunny border or gravel garden provided the soil is well-drained, especially in winter.

• Buy cotton lavender from Crocus, GardenersDream and Suttons

False dittany

Ballota pseudodictamnus or false dittany is a small sub-shrub from the eastern Mediterranean region. It has soft white-green hairy leaves and whorls of pinkish flowers in late spring and early summer. This drought-tolerant evergreen is great for creating all-year-round structure in a sunny gravel garden.

• Buy false dittany from Crocus, Langthorns Plantery and Waitrose Garden

Silverbush

Another delightful evergreen shrub, the silverbush or Convolvulus cneorum, is perfect to add to a Mediterranean-style gravel garden or container. With silvery leaves and attractive white trumpet flowers in late spring and summer, it combines well with the blues and purples of lavender, globe thistle and catmint. Silverbush struggles with cold, wet winters, so it's best grown in pots in areas where these conditions are likely.

• Buy silverbush from Dobies, J.Parker's and Van Meuwen

Lavender

A great favourite of Mediterranean planting schemes, versatile lavender can be grown as a hedge, a specimen plant or in a container. It thrives in poor soil in full sun and is extremely drought-tolerant. With its fragrant flowers, beloved by pollinating insects, it really is a must-have for Mediterranean-style gardens. Like silverbush, lavender is best grown in pots if conditions in the ground are likely to be cold and wet over winter.

• Buy lavender from Crocus, J.Parker's and Norfolk Lavender

Curry plant

This Mediterranean sub-shrub has a pungent spicy fragrance that gives it its common name: the curry plant. It has silver needle-like leaves, not dissimilar to those of lavender, and clusters of bright yellow flowers in summer.

• Buy curry plant from Crocus, J.Parker's, and Waitrose Garden

Phlomis

These unusual-looking shrubs or perennials are favourites with bumblebees. Phlomis flowers are hooded and arranged in whorls. Depending on the species, they can be yellow or pink, and they last through summer into early autumn. Another drought-tolerant plant that requires good drainage, especially in the winter.

• Buy phlomis from Sarah Raven, Van Meuwen and Waitrose Garden

Rosemary

Another sun-loving herb, rosemary is ideally suited for dry gravel gardens and borders, and can even be grown in containers. As well as providing a year-round supply of leaves for the kitchen, rosemary is festooned with tiny blue flowers in spring and summer. There are many different varieties, including more compact types for pots. Try ‘Prostratus’, a low-growing rosemary which is great for containers, or fill a pot or hanging basket with the cascading stems of ‘Blue Rain’.

• Buy rosemary from Crocus, J.Parker's and Sarah Raven

Sea holly

Mediterannean sea holly is a drought-tolerant perennial that thrives in dry soil, so it's ideally suited to growing in gravel gardens. A member of the carrot family, it has spiky silver leaves and ghostly silvery-blue flowers that lack the flat-topped structure of many members of this family. Its summer blooms are attractive to pollinating insects.

• Buy sea holly from Crocus, Dobies and Van Meuwen

Mediterranean spurge

This stately Euphorbia makes a fantastic addition to gravel gardens and dry, sunny borders. It can reach 1.2m tall and its large chartreuse-green flowers with dark red eyes create real impact in spring. Mediterranean spurge has evergreen grey-blue leaves and, once established, copes well with drought conditions.

• Buy Mediterranean spurge from Beth Chatto, Dobies and Waitrose Garden

Salvia

Stalwarts of dry sunny borders, salvias come in a wide variety of shapes and colours. Some are perennial, but half-hardy or tender varieties are often treated as annuals, from which cuttings can be taken in late summer to produce new plants for the following year. Salvias are fantastic for late-season colour as they can go on blooming until the first frosts.

• Buy salvias from Dobies, J.Parker's and Sarah Raven

Globe thistle

The blue spherical flowers of globe thistle create an eye-catching contrast with the bright orange blooms of perennials such as Verbascum ‘Clementine’ and Kniphofia ‘Tawny King’, and they're a magnet for pollinating insects too. A fantastic way to add colour and interest to the borders from mid to late summer.

• Buy globe thistle from Crocus, Sarah Raven and Van Meuwen

Rock rose

There are many varieties of rock rose (Cistus spp.) with open, five-petalled flowers either in pure white or shades of pink. These evergreen shrubs are generally fairly low-growing, although the tallest can reach up to a couple of metres in height. They're low maintenance and tolerate a range of conditions including drought and chalky soils.

• Buy rock rose from Crocus, GardenersDream and Thompson & Morgan

Verbascum

These short-lived perennials or biennials range widely in colour from the bright yellow flowers of our native great mullein (Verbascum thapsus) to the white, apricot, pink, purple or blue blooms of a myriad different varieties. With its upright spires of flower, verbascum is ideal to add spots of colour to sunny borders and gravel gardens throughout spring and summer.

• Buy verbascum from Crocus, Sarah Raven and Thompson & Morgan

Hollyhock

Thriving in dry areas on chalky soils, hollyhocks (Alcea) are stately favourites in sunny cottage gardens. Their tall spires of flower, which reach up to 2m or more in height, create architectural interest at the back of borders. Best of all, hollyhocks can be grown from seed and they self-seed readily, so you can easily create a dramatic display without needing to buy expensive plants.

• Buy hollyhock from J.Parker's, Sarah Raven and Thompson & Morgan

Thyme

This versatile herb can be grown as ground cover, in pots, or as a compact shrub in a gravel garden or dry, sunny border. Bees, hoverflies and butterflies love nectar-rich thyme flowers and varieties such as Thymus citriodorus 'Variegata' are great as culinary herbs too.

• Buy thyme from Crocus, Dobies and J.Parker's