Full sun (in shade, cenizo tends to grow leggy.) Evergreen, with smooth, dusty-green leaves that contrast with the typical silverleaf cenizo. Lavender-colored flowers appear sporadically during hot humid weather. Green Cloud tolerates poor soil, full sun, and drought, and thrives with or without rain. It is among the most drought-tolerant of all large landscape shrubs and makes a useful standard by which others can be measured. In fact, over watering compromises Cenizo’s tidy shape, makes it messy, and encourages cotton root rot; nothing can kill cenizo faster than waterlogged soil. Mild hedging or tip pruning in spring and early summer is usually enough to preserve a dense form. Avoid shearing it too harshly (see photo); overgrown plants can be coppiced or restarted in spring (see photo) but remember — they won’t start growing again until May.