SOLDIER OF FORTUNEI
When you buy a house, certain things come with the property. If the house is old, like mine, you get creaky steps, sloping floors and strange nighttime noises that defy explanation. When we bought our house eleven years ago, we also got Euonymus fortunei, sometimes known as “winter creeper.”
Winter creeper did not give me the creeps, but it didn’t sing to me either. Ours came in two different varieties. The true creeper had a mounding habit and spread along the ground, growing only about eight inches tall. The other euonymus was a larger type that rose to about four feet, with a three foot spread. Both were evergreen, which is characteristic of the species. The true creeper had green leaves with white margins. Its taller sibling had glossy dark green leaves with gold edges.
The low grower had been installed at the front of a long wide bed that was drowning in English ivy. I don’t know how long the pitched battle between euonymus and ivy had gone on, but the euonymus was losing. The only reason why I didn’t let it lose was because I thought the disappearance of the euonymus would give the ivy free rein to take over the entire property. I figured the creeper was a good fighter and might just slow the ivy down, giving me more time to undertake the Sisyphean task of controlling it.
So for years the little-loved euonymus stood, like a horticultural Maginot Line, between the ivy and the grass. I didn’t like it enough to do anything special with it, but I didn’t hate it enough to pull it out. It was in limbo.
Then I began to think about the difficult, semi-grassy strip on the street side of my privet hedge. The grass did not grow well in the narrow patch, which separated the sidewalk from the shrubs. I decided that instead of neglecting the uninspiring grass, I would encourage something better. I pulled out the euonymus in front of the ivy, along with its neighbor, an anemic-looking prostrate juniper. After dividing the euonymus I installed the pieces on either side of the juniper. Allowing for growth, the three would eventually fill the space. What’s more, the euonymus looked appealing on its own–not just because it was twice as healthy as the juniper. Now I skulk in the bushes pulling weeds and waiting for passers-by to comment on how good it looks.
Of course, I did not just abandon the ivy to its own devices; I pulled out a large amount of it and put down newspaper and a thick layer of mulch where the euonymus, juniper and departed ivy had been. The ivy battle is advancing, but it probably won’t end until the day when my frustrations mount so much that I spend an entire weekend covering the large bed with a twelve-sheet thickness of wet newsprint and twenty bags of cedar mulch.
The yellow and green euonymus fights its own pitched battle against the rambunctious butterfly bush on one side and the boisterous variegated holly on the other. The butterfly bush, given to me by a gardening friend, grows well beyond the bounds of decency every year, but the flowers are wonderful in summer. When I cut it back in the winter, the euonymus sighs in relief.
Now that I have arrived at the very sensible conclusion that surrounding myself with flowers leads to better mental health, I have come to appreciate both the yellow and green euonymus and its creeping relative. I am not wealthy, nor, as I say meaningfully to my husband every week, do I have a greenhouse. Therefore, in the winter, I have to make do with inexpensive supermarket flowers and augment their sparse numbers with whatever greenery I can gather from the yard. I use yew in all its funereal grandeur, as well as the omnipresent ivy, but the two euonymus varieties really work well in flower arrangements. They last several weeks in a vase, and the ends of the leafy branches of the yellow and green variety look almost like flowers themselves. I have combined euonymus with everything from expensive roses to cheap mini-carnations and they are compatible with all comers. I give thanks for them every time I bring home fresh flowers. Using branches in arrangements also obviates the need for pruning, since I clip off enough every winter to keep the shrubs in fine shape.
Now when the sophisticated gardeners that I know go on and on about the many virtues of evergreens and their ability to give structure to the winter garden, I smile as if I invented evergreens. Those sophisticated gardeners are, of course, referring to lofty conifers or landscape fashion plates like hinoki false cypress, not the lowly euonymus. It doesn’t matter; we all harbor bits of information that we don’t care to divulge. I have learned to love euonymus and it has returned the favor by bringing a little brightness to the indoor landscape. What could be more sophisticated than flower in every room?