Euphorbia Characias 'Silver Swan' - Spurge

I just love euphorbias - this is a lovely one.

It fits really well in to my colour scheme for the shade garden, which is green and white. Time will tell whether there will be enough sun for it in this spot.

It looks great at the moment Karen....fingers crossed.

This is a beauty....one of my customers has one!

Bought this last year, it is a beauty, still going strong in all this bad weather.....

Thanks everyone, it is very cheerful. Today the ground is black and wet, the skies are grey and threatening, and I wish I Were back in the Canaries!.....and it's STILL January! :(

Very nice, I find it hard to resist variegated plants :o))

Your shade garden is going to look great . . . I love this, but it doesn't love me!

A wonderful looking plant, I hope it fares better than mine though which I lost in the first year!

Oh,that's interesting ladies....if it dies I shan't blame myself then! Ive placed it in the sunniest part of this quite shady area. I might add a couple of E. amygdaloides as they tolerate shade better. I need to get some green stuff now, or I shall have too much white. I'm aiming for a nice lush green space with lots of pure white flowers.

sounds wonderful. Do you know Malva moschata alba? I had one from Beth Chatto's many years ago and it seeds itself around wonderfully . . . gorgeously pretty white flower with a tiny hint of pale pink!

Yes a little beauty Sheila...

Does it do shade though? Didn't someone send me seed of that .....was that you Sheila? I have the seeds somewhere.....thanks for reminding me!

So I did . . . good grief, I'd completely forgotten! They just came to mind when you said you'd be planting lots of white flowers. Last summer mine came up (by chance) next to Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve' and it was such a good combination that I collected seeds and took cuttings, and hope for a larger drift this year . . .

I think I scattered the seed you sent me last year, so we'll see if anything comes of them!

Come to think of it, I've scattered loads of my seed in a shady bed, so I hope they're not wasted :((

Bought this last year too Karen. It hadn't thrived as it looks exactly the same as it did last spring. It seems to have coped with the frosts but not sure how it would do in the shade.

I've put it right at the front Scottish, so it will get a fair bit of sun, morning and afternoon in the summer. Only about half of my garden is touched by fleeting glimpses of winter sun until about mid march when it starts to fill the garden again.

Love this one Karen, very, attractive. That reminds me, my dark leafed one didn't do anything last year after I cut the old flower stems off, shall have to leave it be this year.

Well, I have never been confident about caring for them, but this week I found a great explanation on how to do it. It said that the flowering stems are biennial Janey. They grow in the first year, and flower in the second year. We should cut them (only the spent flowering stems) down after that, either to the ground, or to where there are obvious shoots below. Going by that, it sounds like you didn't have any 2 year old flowering stems, so this year you might get a good show, but only if you left some of the stems alone when you cut it back last year. If not, you'll have to wait another year. Hope this helps, it's the first time I actually found out how they 'work', and I'm really glad, because I kept ruining mine by cutting them all down!

That's interesting to know Karen, when I cut off the flowering stem, the whole plant then seemed to stand still all last year and not grow at all, I wanted it to bulk up and at least double it's size.....shall have to keep my eye on it this year......I'm wondering if it's in the wrong place too.....in the sun in the summer?