Pretty Periwinkle Sometimes Has a Tale to Tell

A common flowering vine long loved by gardeners, vinca has "gone native" in our woods. Patches of the plant are lovely to see in spring, and they also may serve as clues to an area's history.

What it is: Vinca minor, also known as periwinkle, dwarf periwinkle or myrtle, is not native to the U.S. But it’s hard for many of us to imagine spring here without it.

A creeping vine, vinca has been a popular garden groundcover plant since colonial times, when European settlers brought it across the Atlantic. It grows into dense mats of glossy evergreen leaves on spring-green tendrils, smothering weeds and sometimes native plants – which makes it an unwelcome invasive to some.

I prefer to euphemistically call it an “escaped cultivar” and ignore its less admirable characteristics (and, in fact, it’s not nearly as problematic as some other invaders, because it hardly ever spreads by seed here).

To me, its main asset ­– gorgeous pale blue-lavender flowers of a hue so lovely it got its own name ­– offset a lot of its peskier traits. The blooms first open up in very early spring, making the plant a herald of the season to come.

The five petals of the little periwinkle flower have a slight pinwheel-like twist, and there’s a little white ring around a short throat in the center. It’s an altogether charming springtime blossom, and the plant will often keep flowering late into the season.

Where to find it: Vinca is a common enough garden plant, but you’ll also find it growing in patches in woods of all kinds, including our Pinelands – especially along trails and near old homesteads.

In fact, its presence is often a clue that a site was once settled, even if no other evidence of hearth and home remain. Vinca was particularly popular through the 1800s as a groundcover in small cemeteries, because it makes a pretty, low-maintenance alternative to grass. I was once told it was planted over graves because the smell of the crushed foliage is disliked by dogs, which would then be discouraged from digging. I've never been able to confirm that, but the plant is toxic to canines.

Either way, historians have come to know vinca as a good indicator of gravesites.

Why bother: It’s fun to check on the same patch of vinca repeatedly as warmer weather approaches, watching as tender new green leaves sprout and the first perfectly blue blossoms poke up and finally open, star-like, all over the ground.

Seeking out patches of the plant is also a great way to dig into the history of a particular area, because vinca has always been so closely connected with human habitation. Who knows, that bit of woods covered with a tangle of green vinca vines could be the site of a long-forgotten cemetery.