A low growing, wide spreading shrub (usually a little over a metre high and twice as wide) with flowers of a most pleasing blue - a lighter shade of blue than the more familiar, much taller growing Ceanothus roweanus. This Ceanothus is spring flowering, and become smothered in bloom.

‘Joyce Coulter’ is an excellent shrub for low maintenance shrub borders, but is handsome enough to deserve a prominent position of its own in the garden. As with most Ceanothus, ‘Joyce Coulter’ must be pruned after flowering to keep it growing strongly - a light to medium trim will do the job. Ceanothus must also have lots of sunshine and well drained soils. They stand wind, don’t mind poor soils, and after the first season are very drought tolerant. The lovely blue colour of ‘Joyce Coulter’ combines well with just about all other spring flowers.

For a carefree, colourful mix on a bank or in a sunny, well drained border, mingle Ceanothus ‘Joyce Coulter’ with marguerite daisies, Choisya ternata, Convolvulus cneorum (which has white flowers and grey foliage and definitely isn’t one of the weedy convolvulus), lavenders, lime euphorbias, white or pink Cistus (the large white flowered Cistus ‘Bennett’s White’ is spectacular), yellow and green variegated foliage taupata (coprosmas), scarlet kaka beak (Clianthus ‘Kaka King’), leucadendrons and leucospermums, hebes or corokias. Groundcovers such as white Bacopa ‘Blizzard’, Ceanothus ‘Diamond Heights’ (with lime-yellow and green foliage), or Arctotis, in shades of yellow and orange particularly.