Periwinkle Plants - How to Grow and Look After Periwinkles

How to grow periwinkles

Val Bourne / 28 December 2012 ( 03 March 2021 )

Periwinkles, or Vincas, provide winter foliage and early spring flowers, but can be invasive. Find out how to grow them.

Pink tulips with blue periwinkles by Val Bourne

Periwinkles, or Vincas, are ground cover plants that provide good winter foliage and early spring flowers. They are most useful in wilder areas of the garden where they will smother weeds, or clothe difficult slopes with lush foliage and delicate flowers.

Periwinkle flowers are not for those with smaller gardens as they send out runners which root where they land, rather as some strawberries do. This makes them too invasive to be included in ordinary borders, where choice bulbs and woodlanders are planted and might get smothered.

However, periwinkle plants can flatter borders containing mature trees and shrubs and the flowers, which normally appear in March, are very good for early bees. Deer seem to leave them alone too.

Find out how to plant periwinkle flowers and the ideal vinca growing conditions.

Saga Home Insurance provides cover that goes beyond what you might expect. For more information and to get a quote click here.

Where to plant periwinkles

Periwinkles are bombproof plants that tolerate shade or light-shade in a variety of soils including acid and alkaline. Vincas also make good container plants - particularly the small-leaved Vinca minor forms.

Does periwinkle grow in shade?

Periwinkles can grow in shade but will always travel towards better light. Periwinkles are good planted under trees, which can be a tricky place to plant because it's usually dry and shady.

Can periwinkles grow in full sun?

Periwinkles will also grow in full sun, but they're most popular as ground cover in shady or partially shady areas. As an early-flowering woodland plant they bloom as the deciduous trees are just coming into leaf so light shade or dappled light is ideal.

When do periwinkles flower?

Periwinkles usually bloom in March and April, with some varieties flowering over the summer and into autumn.

They are grown for their foliage as much as their flowers, and are particularly useful for providing winter foliage.

How to grow periwinkles

Periwinkles are slow to grow from seed so it's best to buy propagated plants from a nursery or by dividing an established plant.

When to plant periwinkles

Periwinkles can be planted most of the year during clement weather but spring is best for them to get a good root system. If planting during a dry spell be sure to water well until they are established,

When to cut periwinkles back

In winter the foliage can get shabby and forms of Vinca major and Vinca minor are hardy enough to be sheared off to encourage fresh spring growth. Do not shear off Vinca difformis, however, as it is a little too tender as it comes from the Western Mediterranean.

Keep a vigilant eye for unwanted runners and pull any in the wrong place up.

Vinca companion plants

Vincas are good with spring bulbs, especially tulips, and the picture shows a Dutch garden with a blue periwinkle (Vinca major) used almost like a low hedge.

The Lesser periwinkles (Vinca minor) mix well with robust forms of miniature and shorter narcissi such as ‘Jetfire’, ‘Tête à Tête’, ‘W.P.Milner’ and ‘Jumblie’.

Vincas can be used with hardy wintergreen ferns (especially dryopteris, polystichum and polypodium) and with pulmonarias and oriental hellebores for winter interest and spring colour.

They can also be grown with robust colchicums like ‘The Giant’ as the evergreen leaves cover up the dying foliage. In autumn, the flowers pop up through the leaves.

Find out how to create a woodland patch in your garden

What do periwinkle flowers look like?

Vincas, commonly known as periwinkles, normally have green leaves and single flowers in either purple, blue, pink or white. However there are double-flowered forms and variegated forms too so the choice is wide, although they all send out runners. The Lesser Periwinkle, Vinca minor, offers the greatest choice of colours and flower type, and is also the namesake of the popular periwinkle colour, light blue/violet colour.

How tall do periwinkles get?

Periwinkles vary in height. Taller varieties are listed under Vinca major (roughly reaching 18in/45 cm) and shorter ones (which reach 4in/10cm on average) are listed under Vinca minor. There is also an earlier-flowering species called Vinca difformis which needs more shelter to do well.

The shorter forms send out far more runners and effectively cover whole areas in a netting of stems. Taller periwinkles tend to send out a few long runners, about two feet in length, and these dip to the soil and root - sometimes just where you don’t want them. Plant them in areas where spreading and travelling are desirable and don’t be fooled into thinking that the shorter vincas are less invasive. It’s quite the reverse. Vincas are invasive and they’ve become a real problem in North America and New Zealand.

Margery Fish, the famous cottage gardener from East Lambrook Manor, writing in Ground Cover Plants, lists them under Rampers. However I grow some along my stone walls in sunless positions where little else thrives.

Best varieties of periwinkles to grow

Vinca major (Greater Periwinkle)
The green-leaved form with purplish-blue flowers.

Vinca major ‘Variegata’ (syn ‘Elegantissima’) AGM
This widely-available variegated vinca has attractive green leaves mottled in grey-green with cream-white edging. This bright leaf shows up the purplish-blue flowers and the plant is good at lighting up dank corners.

Vinca major ‘Wojo’s Gem’
A much brasher periwinkle with green leaves irregularly splashed in custard-yellow. It’s used as a trailing basket plant in America. It arrived as a sport of the subtler variegated periwinkle ‘Maculata’. This is sometimes sold under the name ‘Surrey Marble’

Vinca major var. oxyloba (syn ‘Dartington Star’)
Dark-blue spidery flowers and green foliage.

Vinca minor (Lesser Periwinkle)
This small-leaved ramper has mid-blue flowers, but many better forms exist.

Vinca minor ‘La Grave’ AGM (syn. Bowles Variety)
Long trailing stems, with oval, glossy evergreen foliage and large, rounded bright-blue flowers.

Vincaminor ‘Ralph Shugart’
Large bright blue flowers and crisp silver margined, rounded leaves.

Vinca minor ‘Azurea Flore Pleno’ AGM
The sky-blue semi-double flowers and small green leaves.

Vinca minor f. alba ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ AGM
White flowers set against small, shiny green leaves.

Vinca minor ‘Argenteovariegata’ AGM
Small grey-green leaves edged in cream supporting single blue flowers - a better option that the silvery ‘Aureovariagata’.

Vinca minor ‘Illumination’
Bright blue flowers and small green leaves splashed in bright-yellow centre, so very good in shade. A new variety with PBR.

V.minor ‘Atropurpurea’
There are purple-flowered forms and burgundy-red forms of this green-leaved periwinkle sold under this name. Memorably seen framing a seat at Great Dixter and it’s one of my favourite periwinkles.

Vinca difformis ‘Jenny Pym’ (Intermediate Periwinkle)
Much earlier flowering than other vincas, even flowering in midwinter sometimes. ‘Jenny Pym’ is a white-eyed lilac-pink with glossy green foliage. I have found her hardy.

Did you know…?

The English name periwinkle and the botanical name Vinca are both derived from the Latin vincio (to bind) describing the long, trailing stems that spread over the ground.

Vincas contain tannins which are astringent. They also contains indole alkaloids including ‘vincamine’, which is used by the pharmaceutical industry. There are also saponins (detergent-like molecules) and flavonoids.

Common names include parwynke, joy of the ground, ground ivy, cockles, cockle shells, pennywinkle, blue buttons, sorcerer’s violet and blue smock.

'Sorcerer's Violet' was used for making charms and love potions. Culpeper, the 17th century herbalist, says that if the leaves were eaten by a couple they would stay in love forever. It was used to exorcise evil spirits.

The giving of periwinkle meant 'First love - My heart was whole until I saw you'.