This plant tolerates a wide range of soils and irrigation practices and, although drought resistant, plants look best with occasional irrigation. It prefers to be planted in full sun in wind sheltered coastal gardens as leaves are torn by wind and they will droop in high temperatures, but also grows pretty well in dry shade where leaves get larger, but it tends not to flower as much in these conditions. It is cold hardy to the mid 20s° F, but can freeze to the ground and resprout after even colder temperatures. With its bold large foliage, it lends a tropical look in the garden without the accompanying high-watering requirements. Best treated as a large shrubby perennial as it looks much better if it is cut back hard after flowering.

Roldana petasitis is a shrubby member of the Groundsel group of the daisy family (Asteraceae) from the mountainous areas of Oaxaca of Mexico and is most commonly known and referred to as a species in the huge genus Senecio as Senecio petasitis but it and other leafy members of this genus were reclassified into the genus Roldana. It has also been known in the past as Cineraria petasitis and sometimes is referred to as the California Geranium. The name Roldana was published by Dr. Pablo de La Llave (1773 – 1833), a Mexican priest and naturalist, in 1925 to honor Eugenio Montaña y Roldan Otumbensi, who was thought to be a hero in a battle on the plains of Apam near Mexico City.

This plant and the closely related Roldana aschenborniana that we also grow were moved from Senecio to the genus Roldana in 1972 by Smithsonian botanists Harold Ernest Robinson and Robert D. Brettell in their "Studies in the Senecionae (Asteraceae): The Genera Psacaliopsis, Barkleyanthus, Telanthophora and Roldana" in Phytologia 27: 420 (1974). This same paper also constructed the new genus Telanthophora. We have also grown a similar plant that has red petioles and larger leaves that is called Roldana cristobalensis. 

Information displayed on this page about Roldana petasitis is based on our research conducted about this plant in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about it as it has grown in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will 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.