While daphnes have a reputation for being tough to grow, many are actually quite easy if given proper siting. My life with daphnes changed significantly after my 2010 botanical expedition to Crete. I was shocked to find daphnes growing in full baking sun in bone dry regions among large rocks. Before then, I had obviously taken far too good care of my daphnes. Once we constructed the crevice gardens at JLBG, we replaced all the daphnes we’d killed in “better” garden locations. Here’s the Cretan native Daphne sericea in full flower.
I’m showing Daphne sericea as Zone 9 hardiness. So do you treat your Cretan daphne as an annual?
Great question. Many of the plants we grow are listed as Zone 9, but are fine here in Zone 7b. Much of the hardiness data in references comes from gardeners in cool summer climates, where plants from hot climates never get the heat to produce the sugars needed for winter hardiness. In many cases, we find hardiness zones, off by 2-3 zones. This is why we have killed over 65,000 different plants in our quest to discover if conventional wisdom is either.