Plant in full sun to light shade along the coast with increasing shade inland, in well drained soil, and irrigate only occasionally. Hardy to 20-25° F.

This plant was discovered in 1995 by Peter Anthony Brand as a sport of cultivated Ceanothus griseus var. horizontalis 'Yankee Point' in Hatfield, England. A cutting was rooted in 1995 and in 1996 a selection of the plant was further made from one branch that exhibited a uniform cream-white variegation within each leaf. From this branch were grown many plants that all exhibited this strong variegation. In 2000 a single plant was selected for its overall appearance, plant habit, and strong variegation and assigned the named 'Brass'. This plant received the now expired US patent PP14,566 in February 2004 and was marketed in the US under the name 'Silver Surprise' by PlantHaven.

We started growing this cultivar in 2005 and after several years of production, we noted a considerable amount of reversion to all green foliage. While diligent gardeners can prune out the stems bearing this non-variegated foliage, we decided for this reason to discontinue growing it in 2007.

. The genus name comes from the Greek word keanthos which was used to describe a type of thistle and meaning a "thorny plant" or "spiny plant" and first used by Linnaeus in 1753 to describe New Jersey Tea, Ceanothus americanus. 

Information displayed on this page about Ceanothus griseus horizontalis Silver Surprise [Brass] 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.