Thursday, March 26, 2009

European Spindle - Euonymus europaeus

This is so beautiful that it is almost unbelievable. These berries are its greatest attraction. In the autum you can admire them for weeks. In our region it is a frequent forest bush, but it also occurs in such elegant places like the garden of Beth Chatto.

Euonymus europaeusThis is how it looks like a bush. This is a young one planted in 2004, the photo was made in the autumn of 2008. Later it will grow branchy. As you can see from its location, is is amazingly hardy. I have planted it directly to the stock of a huge poplar, on dry, sandy soil which hardly receives any water.

Euonymus europaeusThe nursery pages usually describe it as 2-3 meters high and large, while the pages of universities and of environmental protection give a much bigger height, even 4-7-10 meters. It is spreading, but not aggressive. It is extremely frost-hardy: Z4, and some pages even categorize it in Z3. An excellent plant for dry part-shade.

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