Preferring full sun, it looks best if its natural habit conditions are mimicked – it often grows in small clumps around rocks. It is both drought resistant and frost hardy, coping with a broad range of temperatures. Its main flowering season is spring, but the flowering season is often extended during favourable weather conditions. Outside of the flowering season, the leaves make an attractive evergreen groundcover along sunny pathways and in the front of beds. I often find the flower spikes covered in black ants, but they don’t seem to harm the plant or flower at all. Ants have a symbiotic relationship with aphids, offering their protection in return for the sweet secretions produced by the aphids, so perhaps this is an indication of an aphid infestation. They don’t last long though with the multitude of lurking.  Clumps multiply quite quickly and can be lifted and split in early spring, otherwise, collect seed and sow in a well-drained sandy mixture. They germinate readily and flower in the first year after planting.