Plant in in full sun to partial shade. It requires a well-drained soil, but can be grown in sand, loam or clay soils so long as they do not remain moist. Protection from strong winds is desirable. Little watering is required, especially if the plants are established and well mulched. Once established supplementary watering should be required only during extremely dry conditions, but is tolerated provided the plants are in a well-drained soil. Cold hardy to short duration temperatures down to 25° F - can resprout from the ground it frozen back but likely killed by prolonged temperatures below 25°F. This is a hardy and adaptable shrub, which is lime, drought and frost tolerant. If unpruned Alyogyne huegelii becomes a little sparse of foliage on lower branches. It can be pruned back quite hard after flowering with new shoots initiating from old wood, or tipped back frequently and lightly during the flowering season. Pruning results in a denser, more compact, and possibly more floriferous plant.

Alyogyne huegelii is native to South Australia and Western Australia. The generic name is derived from the Greek 'alytos' - "united" or "undivided" and 'gyne' - " woman" or "female" and is said to be a reference to the unbranched flower style. The specific epithet given this plant by the Austrian botanist Stephan Endlicher honors Charles von Hügel, the Baron von Huegel (1795-1870) an Austrian army officer, diplomat, botanist and explorer who botanized Western Australia, Tasmania and New South Wales from 1833 to 1834 and returned to Vienna with a collection of plants later to be described by Endlicher.

The selection 'Santa Cruz' was one of many that were selected in the late 1970s at the University of California Santa Cruz Arboretum from material imported by their first director, the late Ray Collett. We grew and sold this nice plant from 1988 until we closed the nursery and also grew a very dark flowered Ray Collett selection we named Alyogyne huegelii 'Purple Haze', but its growth form was not as nice as Santa Cruz and we discontinued growing it in 1998. 

The information displayed on this page about Alyogyne huegelii 'Santa Cruz' is based on our research conducted about this plant from books in our nursery library as well as from information that is provided by reliable online resources. We also have included our own observations made about it as it grew in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers when we had them in our nursery field. We also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.