Purple Wintercreeper Euonymus
My story dates back to the early 1980s. Lynn and I had just bought a house for my mom. I had finished up a fairly simple landscape, but I had one little bed that was calling out for a groundcover.
We’d just had one of those bad Texas winters (’83-’84) and I was fed up with Asian jasmine. I was out shopping, and I came across two flats of a plant I’d never tried. I’d heard it was good, so I bought both flats of purple wintercreeper euonymus, Euonymus fortunei ‘Coloratus.’
I planted Mom’s one bed with one flat, and I brought the other flat home. I set it out on the ground outside my little home hobby greenhouse. Its stems trailed out over the soil and eventually took root. Roots grew out of the drain holes and into the bare native Texas clay ground.
Before I knew it, a year or two later, I had a groundcover growing happily without any care other than an occasional splash-bath out the door of my greenhouse.
Since that time, I’ve used purple wintercreeper in every full-sun bed in our landscape. I see it in many commercial and residential landscapes, both sun and part sun, and it has performed handsomely. I still like Asian jasmine a great deal, but I’m tired of its browning after almost every winter in North Texas. It always comes back, but it’s so bleak for two or three months. It’s also not as tolerant of drought as wintercreeper.
To get you started…
Here are the important facts.
Common name: Wintercreeper, or purple wintercreeper euonymus
Scientific name: Euonymus fortunei ‘Colorata’
Native home: China, Japan, Korea
Height: 6 in. Width 15-36 in.
Growth form: Trailing groundcover or clinging vine
Lighting: Sun or part sun
Hardiness Zone: 4-9 (all of Texas)
Evergreen or deciduous: Evergreen, but leaves turn maroon over the winter.
Soil preference: Tolerant of most soils. Prefers neutral or slightly acidic, highly organic, and consistently moist, but tolerant of alkaline soils and occasional drought.
Propagation: Stem cuttings.
Spacing: 4-in. pots 15 in. apart, checkerboard style.
First year care: Arrange runners to fill empty spaces. Occasionally will need to trim stems that stand upright but try to lay them down whenever possible. Use water-soluble, high-N food with each watering for fastest growth.
Second year care: Spend this year getting plants to cover the bed. They should begin to thicken up by the end of this year. Use high-N lawn food spring, summer, and fall.
Third and successive year: Use line trimmer occasionally to keep bed tidy. Try to avoid formally pruned look. Continue using high-N plant food spring, summer, and fall thereafter.
Note: Some people worry about scale insects when they hear the name “euonymus” attached to any plant. I’ve grown and observed this plant for 40 years, and the only time I’ve seen scale insects on it have been when it has been allowed to climb vertically, usually up tree trunks or fences and walls. As a groundcover, scales are not a common occurrence in my circles.