Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Coastal-rosemary is rated fire resistant, although the support is limited and one cultivated selection carries a pruning instruction.
Diputació de Girona and Bombers de la Generalitat de Catalunya rate Westringia fruticosa “recommended.” Their qualitative method assumes species-specific care and weighs fire-resistance research and fire-service experience alongside fuel structure, maintenance, origin, and invasiveness. The ACT Government plant selector reaches the same practical side of the question by marking the shrub “Fire Retardant: Yes.”
Ozbreed adds a narrower finding for Mundi™ Westringia fruticosa ‘WES05’ A. Its review places that selection on List 3 with extra management criteria and instructs gardeners to prune dry-looking or brown foliage. That instruction applies to Mundi and should not be enlarged into a rule for every coastal-rosemary or an explanation of how the foliage changes fire behavior.
The first two sources give the species positive fire-related judgments, while the third includes a particular cultivated selection subject to stated care. Together they support treating coastal-rosemary as a fire-resistant shrub for plant selection, but not as an unconditional choice. The conclusion remains qualified because it rests on limited primary evidence and includes methods that consider management as well as fire performance.
Form
shrub
Rated in
Australia; Australian Capital Territory, Australia; Catalonia, Spain
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Australia; Australian Capital Territory, Australia; Catalonia, Spain
Maintenance
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Where its sources say to plant it
Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating.
They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.
Guía de pirojardinería: suitable inside or outside the 25-metre maximum-risk zone [girona-2020-iuf-25m-suitability] (with its recommendation)
Canberra Plant Selector: filtered result page 14 [canberra-selector] (with its recommendation)
The evidence
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
Westringia fruticosa is rated “RECOMENDADA” by the guide's qualitative IUF garden-suitability method. The method assumes species-specific care and integrates fire evidence with fuel structure, maintenance, origin, invasiveness, and expert fire-service experience.