One of the most well-known of our local shrubs, the Coast Correa or White Correa (Correa alba) is flowering spectacularly at the moment.

Not surprisingly, given its name, Coast Correa is a plant of seaside areas, growing in sandy and rocky conditions. And if you head down to coastal spots like Sharkey's Beach in Coledale, Puckey's Estate in Fairy Meadow or even Bass Point in Shellharbour, you'll see Coast Correas absolutely covered in gorgeous white flowers.

The flowers attract a range of pollinators, including native bees and honeyeaters, and once pollinated develop into small angular green fruit with a pale fuzzy-furry coating. (An enduring mystery of Coast Correa is how to get those seeds to germinate and grow; I know I've tried many a time but never had any luck, and nurseries generally grow them from cuttings rather than from seed.)

This species' preference for coastal conditions means it does not perform brilliantly in the clay soils that dominate the coastal plain and escarpment slopes. Planted in these conditions it will often be highly unpredictable, which is a euphemism for 'likely to die off at any moment.'

We have grown several Coast Correas in our escarpment garden and those that survived (only about 50% lived past the first year) all became leggy and spindly, with more giving up the ghost each year or two.

The survivors still flower and, of course, the flowers are very pretty, but they don't have the compact shape of plants growing in their preferred habitat. Pruning doesn't seem to help much either, as our plants keep putting out new long stems.   

Coast Correa can be grown in pots, using a freely draining sandy potting mix, but as a fairly large shrub, to about 1.5m high and 2m across, a big pot would be in order!