Dark purple-flowered periwinkle (Vinca minor 'Atropurpurea')

Covering the Ground

Posted on by Ann Mackay

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These purple flowers look attractive but may soon be trying to overrun a large patch of my garden. For once, I don’t mind. This is Vinca minor ‘Atropurpurea’, the dark purple-flowered periwinkle. It’s a ground-cover plant that can spread quickly and has small but pretty flowers.

Normally I’m wary of plants that have the ability to become thugs that try to take the garden over. This time, though, I needed something that would survive in the dry shade beneath a ceanothus (California lilac). It also needed to be able to creep along the ground and help to stabilise a slight slope near the edge of our pond.

Once this plant has done its job of providing ground cover under the ceanothus, I’ll try to persuade it to continue its spread below some of the neighbouring shrubs. I reckon it should help to keep down the weeds under them too, which would be very helpful. (It gets tricky to weed under shrubs as they get bigger and I get older!)

I wonder how far it can spread? (The RHS says 1.5 metres, but I’m betting that it will self-propagate by layering and reach further.) I know I’ll have to keep a stern eye on it and give it a thorough trim if it goes too far.🌿

Dark purple-flowered periwinkle (Vinca minor 'Atropurpurea')
Dark purple-flowered periwinkle (Vinca minor ‘Atropurpurea’) can cover a lot of ground very quickly!

Published by Ann Mackay

Photographer, mixed-media art adventurer and completely daft about plants.......

16 thoughts on “Covering the Ground”

  1. That’s a stunning colour. Far nicer than my white one. It’s easy to take cuttings too if you want it in other places. Simply pull a runner out, it will have roots attached.

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    1. We had the blue one already around the garden when we came here, but it doesn’t seem to flower as much. There are lots of flowers on this one and the colour really appealed to me. Nice to have an easy plant! 🙂

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  3. I planted vinca to cover a small slope in my garden and from a few pieces I got from a friend, the whole slope (4 feet x 11 feet) was covered within a year. They are beautiful, and they need to be controlled, which is easily done by yanking them out. One of my favorite signs of spring. Lovely color, these.

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    1. Agreed, Madeleine…it does need to be kept in check. We have blue periwinkle elsewhere in the garden and I chops lumps out of it when necessary! The colour was what drew me to this one. 🙂

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      1. By the way, I tried posting my comment several times last night but once again a window kept popping up saying I wasn’t logged in, even though I was, as evidenced by my ability to access my dashboard and leave comments on other people’s posts. I tried again this morning and found things were back to normal.

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  6. That’s a beautiful color. Given its appearance, I had to make a visit to phlox vs. vinca pages, and many said that vinca creeps, while phlox is more erect. Be that as it may, some of our phlox colonies are really large, so keeping an eye on this one might be good.

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    1. I’ll have to be vigilant and trim it regularly because it does spread quickly. But if it wasn’t there, there would be all sorts of weeds in under the shrubs there, so it is being useful!

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  7. I don’t know if they are the same species as yours, but I have seen vinca both in Germany and Colorado and they seem to be very successful in both places. I think they look beautiful when they cover vast swaths of ground.

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