A few days of sun and warmth and the flowers are out on this marvellous evergreen silver-leaved hedge. And it is a magnet for bees, mostly bumblebees but also honey bees and the jet black rumbling carpenter bees. Throughout the summer there is a rustling from its depths: lizards love it too.  

The hedge is Teucrium Fruticans, the Bush Germander. The Spanish call it Olivilla. It has silver leaves like the olive tree, but that is the only similarity. It loves the sun, is drought tolerant, grows in poor soil and survives to -5°C: so lots of ticks in our gardening book. We’ve trimmed it hard and it has thickened out beautifully to a dense pale, silvery hedge.
5 to remember
un seto – a hedge
el calor – the warmth
un imán – a magnet
un abejorro – a bumblebee
negro azabache – jet black