Wintercreeper

Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests

Arizona Mountains forests

Atlantic coastal pine barrens

Blue Mountains forests

Central Pacific Northwest coastal forests

Central-Southern Cascades Forests

Colorado Rockies forests

Bergenia cordifolia (often treated by botanists as a synonym within B. crassifolia) is a tough, evergreen perennial native to the Altai Mountains, southern Siberia and Mongolia, grown for its bold, heart-shaped leathery leaves that flush red-bronze through winter and its deep pink flower spikes in early-to-mid spring. It is one of the most tolerant groundcovers in cultivation - enduring deep shade, poor soil, drought, and hard continental cold (commonly rated to USDA Zone 3 in US horticulture; RHS rates it H7, hardy below -4°F). The honest catch is its shallowly creeping rhizomes: in mild, moist climates they can colonise well beyond the intended planting, and the large, persistent leaves trap fallen debris and are notoriously attractive to slugs and vine weevils.

What it needs

Conditions

Light

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Water

Moderate water

Soil pH

Acid / Neutral / Alkaline

Acid is below pH 6.0, neutral 6.0 to 8.0, alkaline above 8.0.

Spacing

3 ft

Habit

Evergreen to semi-evergreen woody plant that trails as a groundcover, mounds as a low shrub, or climbs by clinging roots as a vine

Care tips

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Check whether your state lists it as invasive before planting; across much of the eastern United States it is, and a native groundcover is the better choice.

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Where it already grows, keep it off trees, fences and walls: climbing stems are the ones that flower and set the seed birds spread.

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Cut it back from wild ground, lawn edges and neighbouring beds every year, since stems root wherever they touch soil.

Lifecycle

Planting

The best planting advice is not to plant it where it is listed as invasive. Where it is grown, the Missouri Botanical Garden says it takes average, medium, well-drained soil in full sun to part shade and a lot of shade besides, almost any soil except a wet one, some drought once established, and urban conditions. NC State Extension adds that it is salt tolerant and pH adaptable.

Transplanting

NC State Extension notes it is easily started from woody cuttings, so pulled pieces left on the ground can take root again. If you are removing it, keep it off walls and trees first: the Missouri Botanical Garden says climbing plants flower and seed more readily, which increases its spread.

Early growth

NC State Extension says trailing branches form new roots wherever they touch moist soil, and that it grows rapidly. Plants For A Future notes that it does not normally need pruning, while the Missouri Botanical Garden suggests a trim each year after flowering to keep its shape.

Maturity

Its size depends on what it grows on. The Missouri Botanical Garden gives 3 to 20 feet tall and 5 to 60 feet wide; NC State Extension says it can be kept a few inches tall as a groundcover, about 6 feet as a shrub, or around 15 feet on a trellis, and can reach over 60 feet up a tree; Wikipedia gives 66 feet as a vine. Once a climbing stem reaches the top of its support it switches to a flowering, fruiting adult form, which is what produces seed. The Missouri Botanical Garden names euonymus scale as a significant problem, along with anthracnose, crown gall, leaf spot, mildew and aphids.

Propagation

Plants For A Future calls half-ripe cuttings very easy, and the Missouri Botanical Garden notes stems root where they touch the ground. Seed sown fresh comes up readily, and stored seed needs warm then cold stratification, per Plants For A Future. It spreads on its own by both routes, so do not pass pieces on.

Native range

Worldwide native range.

Climate notes

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The Missouri Botanical Garden and Plants For A Future both list Euonymus fortunei for USDA hardiness zones 5 to 9, and Wikipedia also gives 5 to 9. NC State Extension gives a wider 4a-9b, which is not used here. Plants For A Future says it is hardy to about -0°F.

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The native range here is taken from Kew's World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), the dataset POWO publishes: much of China including Manchuria, Hainan, Qinghai and Xinjiang, Korea, Japan including the Nansei-shoto (Ryukyu) islands, Taiwan, Assam and the eastern Himalaya, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia from Sumatra and Java to Sulawesi and the Lesser Sunda Islands. WCVP records it as introduced in 27 US states and the District of Columbia, from Vermont and Massachusetts to Georgia and west to Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kansas and Texas, and in Ontario, Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, Romania and the Baltic States.

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Where it is invasive: the Missouri Botanical Garden calls it highly invasive in much of the eastern United States, where it smothers and outcompetes native vegetation, and notes it is a listed noxious weed in one or more Midwestern states. NC State Extension says it is listed as invasive in North Carolina, by the NC Invasive Plant Council, and in other states of the Southeast and Northeast, and that it readily escapes into native forests. Wikipedia records it as invasive across much of the eastern United States and in Canada.

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Why climbing matters: NC State Extension and Wikipedia both say that a stem climbing a tree or wall turns into the adult, flowering form once it reaches the light, and that is the form that sets the bird-spread seed; the Missouri Botanical Garden likewise warns that a plant grown as a climber flowers and sets seed more easily. Plants For A Future notes that plants in Britain often stay juvenile and never flower. A wintercreeper kept flat on the ground flowers little; one on a tree is the one that spreads.

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Do not confuse it with Japanese spindle (Euonymus japonicus): Wikipedia notes the two look very alike in cultivation, but in the wild wintercreeper climbs or trails while Japanese spindle is an upright shrub.

Similar plants

Browse lateral options with similar roles, light needs, size, or native-range overlap; these are not filtered for a better climate fit.

Bergenia cordifolia

Elephant's ears

Liriope muscari is an evergreen, grass-like perennial native to the shady forest understories of China, Japan, and Korea, where it grows at elevations of 330 to 4,600 feet. In gardens it forms dense, weed-suppressing clumps of arching dark-green foliage topped by spikes of lilac-purple flowers in late summer, followed by ornamental black berries - earning it the RHS Award of Garden Merit. It is drought-tolerant and remarkably adaptable, but the honest catch is its behaviour outside its native range: in parts of the eastern United States it is a documented invasive species, spreading by rhizomes and self-seeding into natural areas, and it provides minimal wildlife value compared with native groundcover alternatives.

The classic cool-season bedding plant, grown for 2-4 inch flattened "face" flowers in nearly every color, usually marked with a contrasting dark blotch and central whiskering. A garden-origin hybrid (not a wild species) treated as a short-lived perennial run as a cool-weather annual or biennial - it blooms hardest in spring and fall and inevitably succumbs to summer heat. The Missouri Botanical Garden lists it as the top-selling winter bedding plant in the deep South.

Begonia (Semperflorens Group)

Wax begonia

A tender perennial grown almost everywhere as a warm-season bedding annual, prized for blooming reliably from June to frost in white, pink, red, and bicolor. Its thick, waxy dark-green-to-bronze leaves minimize water loss, giving it real tolerance for hot, humid summers. Compact and mounding at 6 to 12 inches, it is a workhorse edger and container filler in sun-dappled part shade.