Mexican Heather
Cuphea hyssopifolia
A neat, fine-textured mound sprinkled with tiny lavender flowers from summer until frost, loved by bees and butterflies and unfazed by heat, humidity or salt. Water it through dry spells; north of the Gulf it's a long-flowering annual.
- Mature size
- 1.5 × 2 ft
- 0.5 × 0.6 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 9a–11b
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Dry to moist
- Blooms
- Jun–Oct
Mexican Heather at its mature size
A mature Mexican Heather grows 1 to 2 feet tall and 0.75 to 4 feet wide.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: NC State Extension, Texas Tech University.
Through the year
What Mexican Heather looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
In leaf · Nov–May
Fine glossy green leaves, few flowers.
In flower · Jun–Oct
Sprinkled with tiny lavender-pink flowers.
Growing Mexican Heather
- Grows well in
- The Southeast, the Plains and Mountain West, California, and the desert Southwest.
- Growth rate
- Medium
- Good for
- Small space, foundation planting, drought tolerant, and pollinators
- Leaves
- Evergreen
- Native to
- Mexico and Central America
Spacing
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Mexican Heather, that’s about 2 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Mexican Heather in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.