Euphorbia rigida (syn. E. biglandulosa)
Not like its relatively uninteresting brown rodent namesake, gopher plant (Euphorbia rigida) is fantastically coloured, impressing with distinctive gray-blue, spiraling, lance-shaped leaves, chartreuse bracts, and shiny yellow springtime flowers.
In some areas of its native vary, this robust little evergreen is taken into account a weed and is unceremoniously ripped out of the bottom.
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Happily, it has discovered a extra welcoming residence as a specimen decorative in USDA Hardiness Zones 7 to 10 right here in North America, the place many gardeners admire its easy-care behavior and placing look.
In cooler areas, many gardeners choose to make use of it as an annual.
In case you want a cheerful container plant, a specimen for a rock backyard, or one thing to fill your xeric panorama, you’ll see this evergreen on the prime of many lists.
This shrubby, upright, sprawling, succulent-like plant has many aliases.
It’s possible you’ll realize it as upright myrtle spurge, silver spurge, inflexible spurge, gopher spurge, and even milkweed. No, not that form of milkweed (Asclepias spp.). This title comes from the milky latex the stem exudes once you minimize it.
Only for good measure, it has a earlier scientific title: E. biglandulosa.
Prepared to start out elevating this marvel in your backyard? Nice, let’s go! Right here’s what we’ll talk about:
As with most spurges, this one is easy-peasy to develop. There are so few issues that hassle these vegetation. However there’s loads to find out about them, so let’s dig in.
Cultivation and Historical past
Endemic to southern Europe, the Center East, and southwest Asia, gopher plant is usually thought-about a weed in its native vary.
It has additionally naturalized in heat areas comparable to southern California. In North America and Europe, it’s a beneficial decorative for xeriscaping or gardens with rocky, difficult soil.
Bees flock to the yellow springtime flowers of this evergreen magnificence, which is within the household Euphorbiaceae. The leaves are sessile, reverse, and might tackle a reddish-bronze hue on the ideas in the course of the fall.
As alluded to above, this shape-shifter can sprawl out, nearly ground-cover-like, or it may be rather more shrubby, with silvery-gray, lance-shaped leaves that spiral round thick stems reaching as much as two toes tall.
Typically a single specimen can exhibit each sprawling and upright progress habits. It’ll adapt based mostly on the solar publicity, soil, and water availability. Discuss versatility!
These vegetation additionally are inclined to tackle a extra sprawling form over time, significantly after blooming.
When mature, which may take wherever from two to 5 years, a single specimen can attain as much as three toes huge and two toes tall.
This species is chilly tolerant to a minimal temperature vary between 10 and 20°F. Gardeners in colder climates deal with E. rigida as a summer season annual.
Like its different Euphorbia cousins, E. rigida is poisonous if eaten, so preserve curious pets and toddlers away from this one. If a stem is minimize or damaged, it leaks a milky latex that may trigger pores and skin irritation in some folks.
Scientists have begun analysis utilizing varied kinds of Euphorbia as a biofuel since they’ll develop in dry environments, want little water, and are vigorous growers.
I, for one, would love to have the ability to thank fields and fields of this gorgeous plant and its relations for supplying electrical energy to my automobile.
Propagation
E. rigida seeds should not shelf steady, so it’s unlikely that it is possible for you to to buy them commercially. When mature, gopher plant will self-seed in your backyard.
From Cuttings
Because the plant matures, it sends out plenty of stems. You’ll be able to minimize off the tip of certainly one of these stems to propagate a brand new specimen.
In spring or summer season, take nine-inch cuttings and take away the entire leaves from the underside three-quarters.
Place the cuttings in a small pot stuffed with a cactus rising medium in order that they’re buried by about three inches. A six-inch pot is loads sufficiently big for 3 or 4 cuttings.
Water sufficient to moisten the soil however don’t make it soggy.
Place the cuttings in shiny, oblique mild and water when the highest inch of soil dries out.
Hold them heat to encourage new progress – someplace round 70 to 80°F is an effective temperature to purpose for.
Since many people don’t preserve our houses this heat, a heating mat positioned underneath the containers can assist.
This 10-by-20.75-inch mat from Vivosun that’s out there by way of Amazon will pace up the rooting course of and you should use it to lift seedlings like peppers and squash as effectively.
Your cuttings ought to be rooted in about three weeks. As long as they aren’t turning brown or wilting, they’re in all probability working arduous underneath the soil to type new roots.
Permit them to stay of their containers all through the winter, after which transplant them outside in spring. Earlier than you set them of their new residence, harden them off for every week.
To do that, deliver the container outdoors and set it in a sunny spot for an hour. Convey it again inside for the remainder of the day.
The following day, take the vegetation outdoors for 2 hours. Hold including an hour per day for every week. Now you possibly can transplant it within the backyard.
From Divisions
Because the plant ages, it’s going to unfold, and you may divide it. In actual fact, it’s a sensible concept to divide your gopher vegetation to regenerate them since they don’t have an extended lifespan.
Dividing gopher vegetation is a matter of digging them up by going across the perimeter of the clump and separating the roots to incorporate a number of stems.
Learn our complete information to be taught extra concerning the dividing course of.
Transplanting
In case you reside in a area the place E. rigida thrives, you possibly can in all probability discover it at a neighborhood nursery. If that’s the case, placing it within the floor or a container is fairly simple.
Dig a gap within the floor about the identical measurement because the rising container.
Gently take away the plant from the container and put it within the floor.
Fill in across the soil and water evenly. If the soil settles in any respect, add a bit extra. The gopher plant ought to be sitting on the identical peak that it was within the pot or wherever it was beforehand rising.
Learn how to Develop
These hardscrabble toughies will tolerate many well-drained soil sorts: sand, loam, or chalk.
They give the impression of being significantly good in rock gardens and in beds with pebble mulch. Heavy clay in all probability drains too poorly, so develop in containers if that is what you’re coping with.
Gopher vegetation do greatest rising in full solar, and the cover could have a extra rounded, dense form there. However you can too develop them in partial solar.
Moreover, they’re extraordinarily drought tolerant. I don’t give mine any supplemental water; we solely get rain a few times in the summertime, and it does simply superb.
In case you see the vegetation begin to droop after weeks and weeks of no rain, go forward and provides them a drink. Simply don’t water a lot that the soil turns soggy.
You completely don’t have to feed your gopher vegetation, however a aspect dressing of well-rotted manure within the spring gained’t go amiss. Or you possibly can feed with an especially gentle, balanced fertilizer.
I like Right down to Earth’s Vegan Combine, which has an N-P-Okay ranking of 3-2-2. It’s good for cacti and succulents that want a lift.
Right down to Earth Vegan Combine
Arbico Organics carries this fertilizer in five-pound compostable bins.
Containers
As we mentioned, the gopher plant is completely joyful in containers. Be certain to pick a pot that has good drainage, with at the very least one gap per gallon of capability.
Terra cotta is a brilliant choice as a result of it dries out extra shortly than different supplies, however something with good drainage will work.
Don’t fill it with a normal potting soil. Select a succulent or cactus-specific medium. Water solely after the soil has dried out fully.
Rising Ideas
- Develop in any well-draining soil.
- Develop in full to partial solar.
- Water if there hasn’t been any rain for a number of weeks.
Upkeep
The yellow flowers contained in the chartreuse bracts flip orange as they mature, and the sepals change from inexperienced to a reddish hue.
Ultimately, inexperienced fruits type. If you wish to forestall self-seeding, minimize off the flowers as soon as they flip orange.
In case you object to the sprawling, barely odd-looking type that gopher plant can tackle after blooming, trim off the trailing stems. You’ll get a extra compact, upright progress behavior this fashion.
Put on gloves whilst you’re at it, although. You don’t need that sap-like latex to annoy your pores and skin. In any other case, these vegetation require no additional upkeep.
Varieties to Choose
There aren’t any cultivars in the marketplace, however you will discover hybrids that use E. rigida as a father or mother.
Shorty (E. x ‘Shorty’), as an illustration, is compact and stays underneath 18 inches tall, with bronze and inexperienced leaves.
Managing Pests and Illness
E. rigida repels deer and rodents, together with – you guessed it – gophers, so there’s no want to stress over these pests.
There’s actually only one kind of insect pest that may assault your plant once in a while, although it’s often discovered solely on these which might be confused.
Pink Spider Mites
Pink spider mites (Tetranychus urticae) are frequent pests in dry, scorching situations.
In the event that they discover and feed in your plant, you’ll see yellow stippling and superb webbing on the leaves. In case you look intently, you’ll additionally see tiny purple dots transferring across the foliage.
To eliminate purple mites, pour room-temperature water in your plant to knock them unfastened. Do that each few days till the infestation is gone.
Don’t do it for too lengthy, although, otherwise you’ll run the danger of drowning the roots or introducing illness.
Talking of which…
Illness
In case you’re rising your gopher plant in dry situations and well-draining soil, you in all probability gained’t ever should take care of illnesses. If it’s moist or poor draining soils, you would possibly see the next:
Powdery Mildew
Powdery mildew seems as small spots of white, powdery growths on the leaves.
It’s often not more than a beauty challenge, however extreme instances can kill off a few of the leaves and trigger stunted progress.
Powdery mildew is attributable to fungi within the Erysiphales household, which thrive in heat, dry climate on vegetation which might be crowded or in too little mild.
Systemic fungicides don’t work effectively as a result of Euphorbias have durations the place they don’t take up water, in order that they wouldn’t take up the fungicide both at the moment. Topical remedies are greatest.
Root Rot
Root rot in upright myrtle spurge is usually the results of the roots drowning in an excessive amount of water relatively than being attributable to a pathogen.
The roots flip mushy and black, and the highest of the plant wilts, turns brown, and sags to the bottom.
As soon as that occurs, it may’t be saved. However should you catch it early, you possibly can replant in a greater space or change your watering schedule.
Sometimes, moist situations can result in an an infection by fungi within the Fusarium genus.
Any such rot often occurs to specimens which might be already confused. It has the identical signs whether or not or not it’s pathogenic, so it’s actually arduous to inform if it’s the fungus at work or the drowning roots which might be inflicting the difficulty. Greatest to deal with for each.
If the soil doesn’t drain effectively, step one is to replant someplace the place it’s. Subsequent, prune out any brown foliage. Lastly, deal with with a fungicide that targets fusarium, comparable to Mycostop.
That is my go-to for root rot as a result of it’s each efficient and also you don’t should put on a hazmat go well with to keep away from chemical fallout once you use it, because it’s made with a helpful bacterium – Streptomyces pressure K61 – derived from sphagnum moss.
Arbico Organics carries Mycostop in 5 or 25-gram choices. Apply it as a soil drench, not as a twig, following the producer’s instructions.
Greatest Makes use of
I dare you to discover a higher choice should you want a carefree container plant, or a specimen so as to add coloration and texture to a rock backyard.
In case you want one thing to fill your xeric backyard, E. rigida is a certain winner!
Fast Reference Rising Information
| Plant Sort: | Evergreen spurge | Flower/Foliage Shade: | Yellow/inexperienced |
| Native to: | Europe, Center East, Southwest Asia | Upkeep: | Low |
| Hardiness (USDA Zones): | 7-10 | Tolerance: | Drought, frost |
| Bloom Time: | Spring blossom, evergreen leaves | Soil Sort: | Sandy, loamy |
| Publicity: | Full to partial solar | Soil pH: | 6.0-8.5 |
| Time to Maturity: | 2-5 years | Soil Drainage: | Effectively-draining |
| Spacing: | 18 inches | Attracts: | Pollinators |
| Planting Depth: | Identical depth as rising container or earlier rising depth (transplants) | Companion Planting: | Succulents |
| Top: | 2 toes | Keep away from Planting With: | Moisture-loving vegetation |
| Unfold: | 3 toes | Order: | Malpighiales |
| Development Fee: | Average | Household: | Euphorbiaceae |
| Water Wants: | Low | Genus: | Euphorbia |
| Frequent Pests and Illness: | Spider mites; powdery mildew, root rot | Species: | Rigida |
The Good Plant for Difficult Spots
Texturally and chromatically compelling, straightforward to look after, and it repels rodents — what extra might you ask for?
E. rigida is a lovely plant that does significantly effectively in xeriscaped landscapes or different gardens the place an intriguing specimen could be welcome.
Had you ever heard of E. rigida earlier than studying this information? Does it sound like one thing you would possibly like so as to add to your backyard? How do you assume you’ll use it? Inform us about it within the feedback part beneath.
Now that you simply’ve received the gopher plant state of affairs underneath management, perhaps you’re in search of some others so as to add to your xeric backyard. If that’s the case, listed below are a number of guides that may be useful:
