I love this plant, but I’m phasing it out of my garden. Palmer’s Mallow is beautiful, evergreen, great for the bees, with wonderful foliage that has tiny little hairs on it that get backlit by the sun and cause it to positively glow during sunset. There’s nothing NOT to like about Palmer’s Mallow, it even tolerates clay! The only thing I don’t like about it is that of the ten Palmer’s Mallows I’ve planted, nine of them are dead. Dead plants are very unattractive. Nine Palmer’s Mallows have died on me since 2021. That is too high for my tastes, especially since I was using it as a backbone shrub. My theory is, here on the coast, it lives fast and dies hard since the growing conditions are pretty much year round. If you live in Pasadena, plant this plant. If you live in Elysian Heights, or Van Nuys or Claremont or West Covina or Alhambra, plant this plant. If you live close to the coast like me, where weather is milder and soils are richer, plant a Bladderpod and see how that goes. Palmer’s Mallow also can get infested with ants that farm honeydew, resulting in a sudden and rapid decline in health that requires acute observation and rapid treatment. This combination of short coastal life span and ants has caused me to give up on Palmer’s Mallow. Giving up on this plant is a bit like breaking up with your first girlfriend in high school; so ruinously painful, but very much necessary for your personal growth. And that is a horticultural lesson all of us should take heart: sometimes you want a plant but it doesn’t work; move on and find something better.

Calscape