Plant in full sun in a well-drained soil and irrigate infrequently. Cold hardiness on this plant is not well known but likely it will only tolerate light frosts and short duration freezing temperatures. This is an unusual plant looks a bit like a boxwood until the flowers appear and it should prove to be a nice drought tolerant shrub in the California dry garden.

Ballochia rotundifolia grows from 5,000 to 6,500 feet in elevation on the island of Socotra, in the Arabian Sea south of mainland Yemen. It was first collected in 1880 and described by the Scottish botanist Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour (1853-1922), the son of botanist John Hutton Balfour and in 1888 his Botany of Socotra was published. He presumably named the genus for his wife Agnes Boyd Balloch, whom he married In 1884. This specific epithet is in refence to the nearly round leaves. We received our cuttings of this unusual plant from horticulturalist and arborist Glen Williams. 

The information displayed on this page about Ballochia rotundifolia 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.