Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
Euphorbia euphoria!
With their gorgeous foliage and long-lasting blooms, you can rely on euphorbias for a splash of colour all summer long
June is one of the best times of year in the garden, with an abundance of flowers that can take your breath away. But in a few weeks’ time, once the roses are past their best and with poppies and irises fast shedding their petals, a garden can start to look rather tired and washed out. That’s when euphorbias really come into their own.
Also known as spurges, euphorbias are a large group of tough, resilient plants which will add structure to a garden right through the year. They are equally at home in borders or in a container on your patio. They like a sunny position but most will be quite happy in dappled shade, and once they get going they are pretty droughttolerant. They produce colourful, long- lasting bracts around gorgeous small flowers. The one drawback of euphorbias is that they exude a milky sap, which can irritate your skin and is poisonous if ingested, so it’s best to wear gloves when handling the plant.
If you want a large euphorbia to fill out the back of your border, try E. characias subs. wulfenii. This is a whopper of a plant, reaching over 1m (3ft). It has soft, greyish-blue leaves and, in the second year, produces wonderful chartreuse green bracts from March to May. Once it gets going it won’t need any watering, so it’s ideal for a dry corner of your garden where not much else will grow. After the stems have flowered, cut it right back to the base, and it will produce lots of fresh new shoots.
An even larger euphorbia for a sunny spot is E. mellifera, or honey spurge, which will reach a height of almost 2m (6ft). The strong upright stems have bright green leaves with a white stripe down the centre and, in spring, bronze-coloured flowers which smell sweetly of honey.
Medium-sized varieties for the middle of the border include E. griffithii ‘ Fireglow’, whose dark green leaves are set off by lovely orange bracts and flowers, or E. griffithii ‘Dixter’, which has orangey-red flowers. Both reach a height of 75cm (30in).
There are many smaller euphorbias for the front of the border. Perhaps the best known is E. polychroma, which has dark green leaves topped by lime green bracts in spring; in autumn the foliage turns bronze. It will thrive in sun or partial shade, and grows to 40cm (16in). The similarly sized E. amygdaloides ‘Purpurea’, or wood spurge has beetroot red rosettes of leaves and lime green bracts in spring.
Constance Craig Smith Suppliers: www. bethchattoshop. co.uk, www.crocus.co.uk Euphorbia amygdaloides