‘Silver Heels’ Horehound

Marrubium rotundifolium – aka ‘Silver Heels’ Horehound – is a great plant for the really hard places in your yard. It absolutely thrives in full, hot sun and poor soils, and is extremely drought tolerant once established; a deep soaking every four to six weeks will keep it looking great all summer long.

There’s lots more to love about ‘Silver Heels’ too. For starters, it’s evergreen, deer resistant, and pollinator friendly. ‘Silver Heels’ gets about 10” tall and about 3-4’ wide; making it a great choice for a groundcover or a low-growing perennial.

But the thing that makes this plant a real stand-out in the garden is the texture of its leaves. We tend to choose most of the perennials for our gardens based on the color of their flowers, and there’s nothing particularly memorable about the small, white, flowers of ‘Silver Heels’. But oh, those leaves!

‘Silver Heels’ has rounded, soft green leaves with a wonderfully pebbly texture, and the undersides of the leaves are coated with dense, white hairs – making them look like they’ve been felted. Plant them with dark green or bronze-leafed perennials or grasses, as a soft “carpet” under a taller plant, or out along the edge of a walkway or wall – where you can pet them as you walk by.

Like many fuzzy-leafed plants, ‘Silver Heels’ doesn’t do well with overhead water from sprinklers, and prefers drip or hand watering when necessary (which isn’t often!). And they actually grow better in lean, poor soils than heavily amended soils. But give ‘Silver Heels’ a hot, dry, sunny spot where all your other plants struggle, and they’ll be absolutely content.