Sweet Alyssum
Lobularia maritima
A low, honey-scented carpet of tiny white flowers from spring to frost, perfect for edging, pots and the gaps between paving stones, and a draw for bees and butterflies. It often self-sows. It flags in hot summers, so cut it back to refresh it, and give it very good drainage, since soggy soil kills it.
- Mature size
- 1 × 3 ft
- 0.3 × 0.9 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 2a–11a
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun to part sun
- Water
- Medium to moist
- Blooms
- Apr–Oct
Sweet Alyssum at its mature size
A mature Sweet Alyssum grows 10 to 16 inches tall and 24 to 48 inches 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: Proven Winners.
Through the year
What Sweet Alyssum looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
Below ground · Nov–Apr
Not in the ground: planted after the last frost, pulled after the first.
In leaf · May–Oct
Low mound covered in tiny white flowers.
Photos
Growing Sweet Alyssum
- Grows well in
- The Northeast, the Southeast, the Midwest, the Plains and Mountain West, the desert Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, and California.
- Growth rate
- Medium
- Good for
- Pollinators and fragrant
- Native to
- Mediterranean region
Spacing
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Sweet Alyssum, that’s about 3 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 Sweet Alyssum in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.