Propagating Variegated Wintercreeper

Propagating Variegated Wintercreeper Euonymus – Euonymus fortunei ‘Variegatus’ is a great and potentially perpetual activity for your nursery. The plants grow rapidly and are easy to root from cuttings. They can easily become part of your Retirement Investment Plant Portfolio.

Height: 16-18 inches
Spread: up to 6 feet
Sunlight: Full sun|Partial shade|Full shade
Hardiness Zone: 4b
Other Names: Tricolor Wintercreeper Euonymus – Creeping Varigated Euonymus
Description: A low and spreading broadleaf evergreen with very attractive green and cream variegated foliage; makes a nice accent plant, groundcover or plant in a large mass.
Propagation methods – From cuttings or air layering directly on the ground.

Propagating Variegated Wintercreeper Euonymus from cuttings is one of the easiest plants we have found to propagate. The plants send out shoots that just naturally want to root into the ground, it is a self rooting creeper. Stems root really well as cuttings too. Every time you cut off a shoot to root, more shoots grow back. This gives you even more opportunity to make more cuttings.

Your cuttings should be 4-6” long and have 2-4 leaves you can strip off of the bottom of the cutting. Make your cut at a 45° angle. Then dip in some rooting medium. We don’t bother to trim the leaves back or take a whole lot of extra care with these. 80-90% of them will probably root.

Best growing medium for Propagating Variegated Wintercreeper Euonymus

We find course sand or perilite work very well. Keep the cuttings moist but not wet. They do grow roots quickly so watch them and move them to pots once you have some robust roots. Here are some large stems we are taking cuttings from and tray of cuttings in sand.

Looking ahead to future sale.

Here is a good trick for getting these to a sell ready condition faster. Since these root so readily, bunch up 3 cuttings and put them in a 2” X 2” cell together. Once the 3 stems root we move them to a #1 gal pot. Now you will have a small plant with 3 stems. When the new growth comes in trim all 3 stems back to about 6”. Each stem will now send out new shoots at the cut. From there your baby plant will fill out nicely. Do this in the early summer and don’t forget to try to root anything you trim off!

An alternate way to propagating creeping type plants.

As a creeper, propagating variegated wintercreeper is pretty easy while still attached to the main plant. It is a plant that will follow along the ground and often root along the way. All you need to do is find shoots that can touch the ground. Strip off 2-4 leaves and slightly bury the section under the ground. Pin the shoot down, get a little soil over it and it will soon root. This is air layering at its finest.

Propagating variegated wintercreeper commercially.

When we say commercially we just mean with an intent to resell. We also mean year after year so your plant nursery can thrive on for years to come. You might hope to propagate a dozen new plants or hundreds. How large your nursery is, is totally up to you.

Here are some simple steps:

• Buy some non-patented Variegated Wintercreeper Euonymus to propagate when on sale – probably late June and or late September. We can usually buy these at 40-50% off.
• Get them planted in the ground in some great quality soil.
• Buy them in late June when on sale from a box store like Home Depot to start. Be careful they are not a patented variety. By the time they are on sale the current year’s growth will have started hardening off a little. Now it’s time to take a whole bunch of cuttings. This will also work in late September when the box stores sell off all their nursery stock at 40-50% off.
• You now have some mother plants that will give you a nice supply of cutting material each year.

Taking all these cuttings will be good for the plant and it will fill right back out providing you with perpetual cutting material. Get your cuttings prepared for rooting and go. You should have as many cuttings as you will ever need and some really full and beautiful plants in your landscape. Grow a huge bed in your yard to propagate Variegated Wintercreeper Euonymus from, year after year.

Successfully rooted variegated wintercreeper

Here are a couple of successfully rooted cuttings. We will put 3 of these in a trade gallon pot, with soil and let them grow out. As the stems grow you will want to keep pruning these way back so the plant becomes very full. While it hurts a little to trim them way back you must do that to grow a full plant. The good news is you can then root all the material you prune off the plants. Before long you will have a never ending supply of plants and cuttings. Propagating variegated wintercreeper is really pretty easy as they grow like crazy and root easily.