09/11/2026
A tall slender protea with milk-pink heads, good enough to use as a screen.
Protea lacticolor, the Hottentot's Holland sugarbush, is the one you reach for when you want height and a soft colour rather than a big bold head.
The species name means milk-coloured, and that's the look: creamy white or pink heads, smaller and more refined than the showy hybrids, carried through autumn and into midwinter. It grows as a tall erect shrub or a small tree, anywhere from 2 to 6m, on a single stem, with dark blue-green leaves edged in red and fringed with fine white-brown hairs you can see plainly on the young growth.
That slender upright form is what makes it useful. Run a line of them and you've a screen along a boundary. Stand one on its own and it's a focal point in a fynbos bed. It's a good cut flower too, so it earns its keep indoors. It's endangered in the wild, down to a handful of locations squeezed by pine invasion, so a few in the garden do a small bit of good.
In habitat it grows on moist mountain slopes and streambanks, so it'll take a little more water than the dry-ground proteas. It's half hardy to frost and stands up to wind and drought, which makes it an adaptable, water-wise plant. Full sun, sharp drainage, acid sandy soil. Pinch the tips of a young plant to bush it out.
The feeding rule never changes. No phosphorus, no manure, no fertiliser. Compost can burn the roots and a phosphorus feed will kill the plant outright. Mulch and leave it be.
📏 Height: 2 to 6m (6.5 to 20ft), a tall shrub or small tree
🌞 Position: full sun
🌿 Soil: sandy, acidic, well drained
💧 Water: takes a little more than most, from moist-slope habitat
❄ Frost: half hardy, takes light frost
🌸 Flowering: autumn into midwinter, February to June
🌱 Fertiliser: don't. Phosphorus and manure are what kill proteas
🐦 Wildlife: sunbirds, sugarbirds and the protea beetle pollinate the flowers, and it feeds honeybees
🏡 Best for: screens and boundaries, a focal point, the fynbos garden, floristry
📷 Photos: Peter Thompson, Marlene, Marian Oliver and botanicexpedition2019nl-saf, via iNaturalist.
