Euphorbia characias Wilcott - Spurge

The Euphorbia characias 'Wilcott' (Silver Swan) is a compact and particularly graphic form of the Euphorbia, a plant with very ornamental foliage, with a silver appearance, valuable for animating a dry garden, essential by the seaside. Its long evergreen leaves, strongly marginated with cream on a slightly glaucous gray-green background, cover stems that start like a bouquet from the base of this rounded plant. Echoing the foliage, large acid green inflorescences appear in spring, variegated with cream, and curiously adorned with reddish-brown nectar glands. This perennial is perfectly adapted to arid conditions and is a plant of structure and accent for low borders. It will enhance all the plants that accompany it, as well as the humblest of rockeries.

Euphorbia characias 'Wilcott' belongs to the large family of euphorbiaceae. It is a variegated foliage horticultural cultivar, discovered in England, more vigorous than the usual variegated cultivars. This variety comes from the Euphorbia characias subsp. characias, native to the western Mediterranean basin (From Portugal to Crete). It is a perennial plant that forms a true undershrub with numerous stems, which will reach about 50 cm (20in) in height and 60 to 70 cm (24 to 28in) in diameter, with fairly rapid growth. Each stem is biennial. In the first year, it produces leaves, and in the second year, it produces a terminal inflorescence. From the month of February, in mild climates, large cylindrical inflorescences appear, the tip of which unfurls into a crozier, to bloom from May to June. Each 'flower', without petals, is composed of leaves and bracts, forming a cyathium of acid green color marginated with cream, in the center of which are the brightly colored reddish-brown nectar glands, which attract pollinating insects. The stems and leaves contain a milky sap that is sticky and toxic. This camel plant can live for more than 20 years and self-seeds spontaneously in loose soil, not always true to the parent plant. This variety sometimes has difficulty flowering if there is insufficient sunlight.

With about 8000 species, the genus Euphorbia is one of the richest on the planet. Few of them can acclimate in the garden, but rest assured, there is something to satisfy both the most demanding collector and the amateur who wants to garden without worries with perennial and hardy euphorbias for shade or sun, cool or hot, dry or wet. You just have to choose well. The Euphorbia characias 'Wilcott' is a plant of the scrubland with an exotic appearance that can be planted in a large rockery, on a dry slope or in a very well-drained border with plants that have the same requirements: lavenders, rosemarys, cistuses, asphodels, teucriums or Goniolimon speciosum. The acid green of its flowers goes well with all blue blooms: perennial flax, rosemary Sappho, Globularia alypum, or with the purple foliage of Pennisetum Purple majesty, P. Vertigo, and tall sedums like Black Jak or Chocolate.