(828) 526-0173 | [email protected] | Copyright 2024 – All Rights Reserved.
A Tried & True Evergreen
Written By: Jeannie Chambers - The Accidental Gardener | Issue: 2020/05 - May
Pachysandra is one of five species of the Boxwood family. It has roots to eastern Asia as well as North America. The plant most associated with this area is commonly called Allegheny Spurge.
Even though it can grow upward to 17 inches, the average growth for each plant is 12 inches high and 6 inches wide. It’s an aggressive plant, but very welcome in places where you want weed control or places that aren’t suitable for other kinds of plants.
Evergreen, and considered a tough plant with leathery, toothed leaves and having small white, bottle-brush type flowers in mid spring, the Pachysandra is also drought-, deer- and rabbit-resistant. Some let this plant grow freely to help keep away deer ticks.
Pachys comes from the Greek word meaning “thick” and “stem of man.” Pachy, of course, brings to mind the elephant, rhino and hippo – all have thick skins (derma.) The stems of the pachysandra are slightly woody, but not as much as its cousin, the boxwood.
French botanist Andre Michaux is the first known to have collected Pachysandra procumbens, aka Allegheny Spurge, in the late Eighteenth Century. Michaux is the same botanist that first collected shortia on the Highlands Plateau in 1787. Wouldn’t it be something to imagine him handling some of the same plants, like pachysandra, that have been handed down, and grown in your own landscape? It wasn’t until later that the Japanese species, Pachysandra terminalis, also known as Japanese Spurge, was collected. There is a variegated species that appears to be a little less aggressive in growth.
Every neighborhood needs a toughie, an enforcer, and Pachysandra proves its strength in numbers. If you can keep the spreading in place with borders around the areas you want this plant to inhabit, you’ll have a tried and true evergreen that gives back as a low-growing ground cover with benefits.
by Jeannie Chambers, The Accidental Gardener
