Euphorbia characias Wulfenii
Few plants give a dry garden this much presence. Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii builds a dome of thick upright stems clothed in narrow blue-grey evergreen leaves, and from September each stem is topped by a large domed head of yellow-green bracts, held for months. The heads are big enough to read across a garden and hold on through to December.
This is a structure plant. Use it as a year-round anchor in a gravel garden or dry border, on a sunny bank, in a coastal section, or in a large pot where its shape does the work. It sits well with grasses, rosemary, cistus and other Mediterranean planting, and the grey foliage stays good through winter when little else does.
Full sun and free-draining soil are all it needs, and it will not tolerate heavy wet ground. It handles drought, wind and salt air once established. Each stem grows one year, flowers the next and then dies, so cutting spent stems out at the base is what keeps the plant dense. Cut stems bleed a sap that irritates skin and eyes, so gloves are essential when pruning. It self-seeds where heads are left on.
Forms a shrubby mound 1 to 1.5 m tall and 1 to 1.5 m across.
Trimming: Cut each flowered stem right down to the base as the head browns off in summer. Never shear the whole plant, as next season's stems are already growing among the old ones. Gloves, long sleeves and eye care are essential, and cut stems bleed heavily.
Deadheading: Taking the whole stem out is the deadheading. Doing it before seed ripens also controls the self-seeding, which can be prolific in a gravel garden.
Fertilising: Do not feed. Lean soil produces the compact grey growth and strong stems this plant is grown for, while fertiliser gives you green, floppy growth.
Watering: Give it water for its first summer and no more. Established plants are strongly drought tolerant and much more at risk from winter wet than dry weather.
Pest Control: Rarely troubled. Aphids sometimes cluster on new shoots and can be washed off, and the sap deters most browsing pests.
Disease Management: Root rot in wet soil is the usual cause of death, so drainage is the whole answer. Euphorbia rust and powdery mildew occasionally mark the leaves and affected stems can be cut out. Wash hands thoroughly after handling.
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