Euphorbia characias Miners Merlot - Spurge

The Euphorbia characias 'Miners Merlot' offers purple foliage all year round! Derived from Euphorbia characias, a naturally graphic Mediterranean botanical species, 'Miners Merlot' is adorned with wine-red foliage that evolves towards dark purple. It offers a stunning contrast of colours between its dark leaves and its spectacular inflorescences, made of golden-yellow flowers, adorned with reddish-brown nectar glands. Perfectly adapted to arid climates, this perennial plant is valuable for creating the structure of a dry garden or a sunny rockery. Both an accent plant and a structural plant, it will enhance all the plants that accompany it.

The Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii belongs to the large family of Euphorbiaceae. It is endemic to the eastern Mediterranean (from the south of France to the east of Turkey). 'Miners Merlot' distinguishes itself from the type by its purple foliage all year round. This compact perennial with numerous stems reaches about 50 cm in height and 50 cm (20in) in diameter, with fairly rapid growth. In mild climates, large cylindrical inflorescences appear in April, with the tip unfurling into a crozier, blooming from May to July. Each 'flower', without petals, is composed of leaves and bracts, forming a yellow-gold to chartreuse cyathium, in the centre of which are brightly coloured reddish-brown nectar glands, attracting pollinating insects. The foliage consists of long, thick, evergreen leaves turned downwards, forming tight skirts along the stems. In spring, new shoots emerge in red-wine colour on the darker permanent foliage. The stems and leaves contain a milky, sticky and toxic juice. This camel-like plant is capable of living for over 20 years and self-seeds spontaneously in light soil. However, plants from seeds are not always true to the parent plant.

With about 8,000 species, the genus Euphorbia is one of the richest on the planet. Few of them can acclimatize 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 hardy perennial euphorbias for shade or sun, cool or hot, dry or wet. It's just a matter of choosing wisely. The Euphorbia characias 'Miners Merlot' is a robust plant that thrives in well-drained to dry soil and can be associated with plants that have the same evironmental requirements in a large rockery, on a dry slope, or in a well-drained border: lavenders, rosemarys, cistuses, asphodels, teucriums or thymes. The acid yellow-green of its flowers and the purple of its purple foliage blend well with all blue blooms: perennial flax, 'Sappho' rosemary, Globularia alypum, or the purple foliage of large sedums like 'Black Knight' or 'Chocolate'.