I’m always on the lookout for a plant that is different & will stand out in my garden. I came across ‘Euphorbia characias wulfenii’ at a greenhouse that sadly, was going out of business. I knew it was a Euphorbia of some kind but none of the employees could tell me which variety. I think the only reason I bought it was that it looked so forlorn & badly in need of a permanent home in the ground. Knowing that Euphorbias like it on the dry side & can take lots of abuse I found a spot I thought it might like, threw it in a hole with some mulch, wished it the best of luck & promptly forgot about it.
Euphorbia characias wulfenii
It again grabbed my attention a few months later when it it really started growing. It’s habit is to grow very uniformly with no pruning at all. I appreciated that & made a mental note to pay more attention to it. I was delighted in late February when it began to bloom. It’s chartreuse flowers hang at first & then begin to unfurl upwards where when fully open stand atop strong stems that last for months. I have a good view of it from my kitchen window & I was further endeared when I saw how many bees and other pollinating insects were attracted to it’s nectar filled blooms.
Euphorbia’s nectar filled blooms
The coffee culprit
Early spring is such a busy time for us here that I don’t spend near the time I’d like to in my garden. Most mornings I try to sneak in a quick trip through before I head down to the greenhouses. On one of my walks I smelled brewing coffee & thought that my neighbor must be brewing a pot. It made me want to go back in the house for a second cup, but decided I’d better get to work. The following morning was the same & I wondered why after being neighbors for almost 20 years was I smelling her morning coffee. That evening Paul & I were working separately in different parts of the yard when I began to smell coffee again. Thinking that our neighbor may be border lining on some kind of caffeine addiction I mentioned it to Paul. He graciously pointed out that because of the size of our properties & where our homes are located that it was highly unlikely that the smell was coming from our neighbor’s house. He’s always more sensible than I am in these things & suggested we go for a walk & try to track it down. It didn’t take long following our noses to realize that it was my beautifully blooming Euphorbia. We were both amazed at how strong the coffee smell was. This plant certainly had my full attention now! Wow, drought tolerant, blooms for months with coffee scented flowers & loved by the bees, what’s not to love? As for our neighbor……., come to find out she doesn’t even drink coffee.
Hey Shannon!
That seems like a really interesting type of Euphorbia! Hope to get one of those plants for myself. I hope everyone is very careful when pruning Euphorbias, or taking cuttings because the “milk” that comes out can really cause some major problems if it gets in your eyes. It happened to me while working at a commercial greenhouse. Many blessings, Karen
Thanks for the warning Karen!
Do they need full sun? How much room do they need? It sounds like this is just what we need around here. Thank you for posting.
They prefer full sun and ours has gotten pretty big. It’s almost 4 feet tall & about 3 feet wide. You can keep them pruned smaller, just be careful of the sap as it can be a skin irritant. If you need something hardy & deer resistant it’s perfect!
Where can I get this “coffee smell” plant?
The Grange Co-op’s carry them but you may have to wait until next spring.
Can this plant tolerate winter?
In our zone 7 here in Southern Oregon, it goes through the winter with no problems.
When can I prune mine. It is so big and I want to have a few of them?
You can prune it now or wait till after it flowers if it’s budded up. You can either use some of the prunings and root them in soil or you can divide the whole clump with a shovel if its large. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks, Shannon
At the corner of my block when walking home with my dog in the mornings, I always smell coffee. It was awhile before I realized how unlikely that it was that the people in that house would always have coffee brewing. Then I wondered if it was the large euphorbia plants, and just now got around to looking it up. Mystery solved! Thanks for posting this.
This plant has been haunting me for years. I hate the smell of it, it smells to me like a combination of coffee and garbage. I never knew what it was until I read this post and then realized its outside my bedroom window. Thank you!
Glad the mystery is solved!
It may smell like coffee, but the vapors from this plant’s foliage are poisonous and can cause irritation to the skin and especially the sinuses. The plant’s latex is also poisonous and should be only pruned or handled with gloves.
Hello, I had one of these in my garden and as a landscape architect I thought it resembled a Euphorbia but I did not know which one until I posted it on INaturalist. However, my plant which was 4′ tall and wide did not smell like coffee. When it bloomed, it smelled like a combination of skunk and urine. And it was planted outside the kitchen windows, so with the windows open it was awful.
It was removed and I see startings of the plant in other parts of the garden, so it seems to sow it self and not in close proximity.
Oh my, that plant’s scent sounds horrible!
This is very surprising to me as each of our friends who visit always ask about “that plant that smells like Starbucks” they all love it & ask for a cutting- you are correct however, the sap will surely cause skin irritation.
Euphorbia also smells like skunk to me. But I think it’s person-specific and not the plant. As I can smell skunk and somebody else will smell almost nothing on the same plant. Perhaps it’s similar to cilantro with that love hate soapy taste that some people have.
😃
I was pruning this plant and accidentally got the milky sap on my skin between my nose and upper lip
Washed the sap off asap with garden hose. Unfortunately I have a burning sensation and numbness. Hope this is temporary
I live in Croatia, and in summer months when I go to holiday on an island near Split, on one part of the island I noticed I enjoy coffee smelling mediterranean shrubs…
now, after years of wondering, I decided I wanted to find out which plant it is… and I found the answer here! And really, my island is full of self grown Euphorbia…
greetings from Croatia!
Thanks for sharing!
Yes! I kept noticing a strong coffee aroma every time I walked by this house (Napa CA) These plants are in the front yard, as well as along the sidewalk. One day I decided to pick a little bunch from along the sidewalk. I put them in a vase when I got home. It was then that I kept smelling that wonderful coffee smell. I googled plants that smell like coffee, and I saw this article. That’s when I realized that the people living in the house weren’t brewing coffee all the time…it was all these Euphorbia!!!
It’s a really strong smell! Glad you figured it out.