Inject some zing into your weary garden with electrifying euphorbias

I’m fortunate enough to work from a posh outhouse in the back garden. Known as The Hut, it could grandly be called A Studio, but is, in reality, a large shed with better-than-average insulation, some bookshelves and a fan heater. I get to have a potter in the garden as part of the “commute”, but recent weather has meant my current options to get to work are: gingerly cross the patchy lawn (which I intend to reseed next week, before we go away, so it can germinate in peace) or take the less-direct gravel path. The latter would be the sensible option, except that my euphorbia is absolutely rocketing away, and offers a sort of thigh-high wash of its own.

You’d probably recognise euphorbias even if you didn’t know what they were; in the final, bright days of winter they are a happy, often-neon beacon of hope and promise. My Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii are currently exploding out of an old agricultural water trough that I tried, and failed, to turn into a small pond (I never could stop the leaks), but they previously lived in the gravel garden, until they grew too big for their boots. If I was trying to contain them, I failed: they now rise resplendently to chest height, frequently threatening to engulf the toddler whole (crucially, never when the stems are cut – the sap can be quite nasty on bare skin and in eyes).

This is why they have a bit of a reputation for being a horticultural thug, or taking up space over other plants. In theory, E. wulfenii prefer well-drained soil and full sun, but mine are in a pretty damp, cramped container in a shady corner next to the house that only gets evening sun, and it evidently hasn’t done them much harm. For small and container-based gardens, they really pack a punch for an easily bought plant, those massive lime-green flower heads sparking interest, shape and texture in a garden on the verge of spring. E. wulfenii is also drought-tolerant, making it a good option for pots that tend to dry out more quickly later in the year, and evergreen.

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Other options are E. amygdaloides var robbiae, which I’ve grown on balconies over the past decade – both sun-drenched and woodland – and will spread contentedly in the ground, rarely growing more than half a metre and flowering a little later in the year. E. palustris, meanwhile, flowers in early summer but boasts auburn foliage with the autumn.

If lime green sounds a bit Brat summer, be reassured – it works. My iPhone notes app reminded me to “order more euphorbias” five years ago, along with alliums (purple, I suspect). The latter didn’t work very well in my soil, but the euphorbias have stuck around. Plus, the colour tends to fade as everything else ramps up, leaving a pleasingly odd and architectural silhouette long into the dwindling days.