There’s a euphorbia for everyone!

Euphorbia is a wonderful genus and there is one to fit almost any situation from imposing, architectural types to low gentle woodlanders; there are even succulent species that make good house plants. They all have toxic white sap, but that also means they are…..wait for the magic words …slug, rabbit and deer resistant! As ever there is some rivalry between us three as to who grows the best ones…

You have just gotta love a euphorbia!  Zingy blingy thingies filling the garden with bright fireworks after the gloom of winter. It’s definitely a question of ‘horses for courses’ though – the biggest one in my dry and chalky southern garden parties like it’s in the Canaries on its hols…. 

My courtyard garden smells of honey 🍯 right now because Euphorbia mellifera fills the garden with a rich honeyed fragrance and grows like a weed here. Its bright green leaves with their white mid-rib surround the gingery-coloured flowers in a ridiculously elegant fashion.  Doesn’t like wind – tick.  Doesn’t like wet soil – tick. Good in coastal areas (only hardy to H3) – tick. Honestly, it was MADE for my garden.  We actually had a deep frost about four years ago and it looked very glum. I cut all the top growth off and crossed my fingers.  New stems shot up like rockets and the plant was back in no time, having clearly enjoyed its dice with death.  Very important to say at this point that you mustn’t ever cut euphorbia stems without gloves on – that gloopy white sap is a real skin irritant. 

It’s been too long since I went to Beth Chatto’s iconic garden in Essex, but I remember being knocked sideways by the epic Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii in the Gravel Garden. There were great domed towers 6 feet high of lemony-lime flowers a-buzz with a million buzzers.  When the flowers are finally going over, and you cut the flower stems, this amazing spurge quickly furnishes itself with very handsome glaucous fleshy leaf spikes which will last for the rest of the year.  What a plant.

Euphorbia myrsinites AGM is a very different beast.  Its powder-blue stems sort of snake around the surface of rockeries or the edges of sunny steps, terminating in bright yellow flowers in spring. It looks rather fabulous among those pretty little April bulbs like Scilla and Muscari.  Here’s one of those plants that might have you reaching for the magnifying glass to study the exquisite geometry of all its parts. It’s also one of the plants that Louise has highlighted in her Great Plants this Month – do click on the link at the bottom of this article to find more of her favourite Euphorbias.

---

It’s particularly irksome to hear Elaine waxing lyrical about her honey spurge (E.mellifera) when a) I gave her the seed in the first place – a very good strain with lovely lime-coloured leaves sourced directly from its homeland in Madeira and b) she knows that my garden is too cold for it even to survive let alone ‘grow like a weed!’ 😡.

Elaine’s sheltered walled garden might allow those taller species to strut their stuff but never mind, I’ve recently discovered a super new cultivar, which as its name suggests, is lower and sturdier – it’s Euphorbia characias subsp. characias ‘Humpty Dumpty’. Growing only to about three foot high it sends up masses of stems with flowers of really lovely pale green. It’s rated as H4 by the RHS so I was nervous but it’s sailed through three consecutive nights of -9 here so it’s definitely earned its spurs.

As always I am also intrigued by the outliers in any given group of plants, and there is a beautiful little shade-lover, Euphorbia dulcis ‘Chameleon’ that I adore. It must come true from seed as I first obtained it by winkling out a few seedlings that had self sown in the (neglected) garden of one of Caroline’s previous Highland homes – which also indicates it must be pretty hardy!

My final offering is another shade lover, Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae – a naturally occurring variety of our native wood spurge. Awarded an AGM by the RHS it makes fabulous eye-catching ground cover in those tricky places under hedges or trees where little else would be happy. But my advice would be not to plant it in a border where its tenaciously wandering root stock might not be so welcome ..

---

Of course my parched sisters in the south love euphorbias because they are largely drought tolerant but that, dear readers, is not such an issue here in the Scottish Highlands.

For our kind of climate (and maybe yours?) we need E. palustris or marsh spurge – there’s a clue right there. This absolute hero of a plant laughs in the face of the odd minus 15 and likes nothing better than a soggy bottom. You may have guessed it’s not evergreen like other euphorbias, but year after year it pops through the ground in March, and sets off like a rocket until the onset of winter halts its progress at about 5 foot! My kind of plant.

Both my sisters say they loathe my next choice so imagine my delight when AI tipped it as one of he/she/its top euphorbias – it’s the variegated E. ‘Silver Swan‘. It’s drop-dead gorgeous with generous boughs of creamy leaves and frothy flower heads. It’s much less hardy than palustris and mine, like me, does suffer here in winter, finally succumbing to last year’s combination of cold and wet (I survived, just). Apparently its popularity has been slightly surpassed by E. ‘Glacier Blue’ which looks the same but is more compact and vigorous. Guess what I’m buying this year!

My final tip is E. ‘Ascot Rainbow‘. It’s multi-coloured as its name suggests and decently rugged in temperament. Mine does get blown about a bit so I was delighted to discover earlier this year they’ve bred a new dwarf one ‘Ascot Petite’. I think you’ll see it everywhere this summer – it’s hardy, drought tolerant, neat in habit, low maintenance and probably has a good sense of humour to top it all off!

NB I really wish Elaine and Laura would anticipate my gardening mistakes before I make them, instead of simply rolling their eyes after the event.

When I reported, during a 3Growbags zoom call this week, the demise of my E. Wulfenii after moving it (see image) Laura simply responded ‘you can’t move euphorbias’ and finished the sentence on another topic completely.

Obviously I demanded my late euphorbia be shown more attention and in tones reserved for me and four-year-olds she explained euphorbias have a single tap root – they don’t like being moved – well why don’t they put that on the label?

There are so many other euphorbias that we could have picked, and we probably haven’t mentioned your favourite, so please do tell us which others ones you like in the comments below!

---

Euphorbias – where to get them and the pros and cons

If we’ve whetted your appetite for euphorbias, here’s the low-down on the ones we know and love – and where to buy them

---

This is the list of articles that Louise Sims has written about some of her favourite euphorbias over the years – enjoy!

---

One of the first plants to get going in a garden, this feathery shrub is the picture of innocence – but be prepared to manage its ‘other side’🤣, nonetheless it’s earned a place as Louise’s Great Plant this Month

---

Thompson & Morgan have a great stock list and this weekend they’re offering 20% off their entire range of flowers, plants, seeds, bulbs, shrubs, trees, fruit vegetables and gardening equipment. It ends at midnight on Monday.

---

These traditional zinc plant markers are ideal for keeping tabs on which plant is which especially when it come to seedlings and bulbs.

They’re in our shop here and still at last year’s prices

 

---

💚 The costs of keeping our site working and safe are going up. We want to go on sharing everything for free without adverts, but if you enjoy our weekly posts, the price of a cup of coffee would be extremely helpful in paying the bills! Thank you 💚

---

NB If you’re not already a subscriber and you’d like a bit more gardening chitchat from the3growbags, please type your email address here and we’ll send you a new post every Saturday morning.

First Name

Email address:

Leave this field empty if you’re human: