Beach Rosemary is a compact evergreen shrub native to the Gulf Coast — Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi — where it colonizes the sandy coastal plain in full sun and soils that drain almost immediately. The needle-like gray-green leaves are a near-perfect botanical echo of culinary rosemary, releasing a sharp minty fragrance when crushed. But where Rosmarinus officinalis wants some structure in the soil, Conradina canescens is at home in pure sand, and that distinction matters enormously in coastal and xeric gardens.

The two-lipped flowers, ranging from blue to lavender to white, open from March and keep coming through November — an extraordinary season that makes this shrub one of the longest-blooming bee plants in its native range. It grows 2 to 4 feet tall and wide, forming a tidy mound when grown hard and dry. Root disturbance is not well tolerated once established, so site it carefully. For sandy, low-fertility, full-sun positions where most shrubs sulk, Beach Rosemary settles in with quiet authority.