Welcome to GoY.
The vinca is better known as periwinkle. It is very pretty with little purple flowers but beware, it can be very invasive! The minor is the smaller species, the major being fairly large.

Vinca does best in semi shade although it will thrive in full sun.

As Sheilar said Vinca is very invasive although vinca minor is less so.

When the stems touch the ground they put out roots and can quite rapidly cover a large area and make it look very ragged.

Personally I prune my vinca to about 2-3 inches above the ground imediately after flowering. This prompts new growth and you'll often get a second flush of flowers. You can repeat the process again in early September

This is an area in the front yard that we are having a hard time getting something to grow. The area is partially shaded by a tree. We do have roses bordering the area. They seem to do well. We've tried impatiens but it seems to have too much sun. How far away do we plant the plugs? Thanks for your help.

Mine is in flower at the moment but seems to be slowly strangling my hardy fuchsia, so I've been outside today pulling absolutely hoards of it out by the roots. I know it seems terrible (tearing it out) but it's now starting to climb up plants. What I may do is pull it out altogether but put some of it in a hanging basket, that way it can't spread!!

It is a thug of the first water...

We had a lot of it in our shady bed and I was sad to watch my husband attack it with a vengeance a week or two ago! It had also climbed up other plants. It is a very pretty flower and from what I can see we don't have a lot of it left, but probably there is enough!

So the answer is, don't worry what she does or how she does it, the vinca will win in the end.

I have had to dig up all my favourite plants and go to work with some industrial-strength weedkiller over a large area for the second year running, trying to get rid of this appalling plant. It's in my rockery, and the stems and roots grow down to a remarkable depth, under rocks and round other plants' roots, and into the lawn, where we can't get at them. You will never manage to dig it out. It's like the sorcerer's apprentice, when you cut one down, ten spring up in it's place. If you don't want your garden overrun by this monster, confine it to pots. Sorry to be so negative, but I feel I cannot warn you strongly enough. So, Slavemaster, I think you should order your slave to bin it and buy something else instead.

Agree Gattina, I can't understand why Garden Centres sell it!

I'm afraid I get really worked up over this little plant. I HATE using weedkiller, but there's just nothing else I can think of to deal with it. It should come with a government health warning: such a shame, it is so pretty and looks innocuous, too.

A friend of mine had a shaded 20 foot square corner of her front garden covered in Vinca. Her gardener couldnt keep it in check. He used to strim it. I tried but failed to make any impact on it. Sorcerers apprentice is a very good description Gattina. Suggest you browse around the hardy geranium content of Google images......they can take over but they are easier to deal with than vinca. Look for Geranium Macrorrhizum (sorry about the name) Likes deep shade. Easy to pull up side spread. Small flowers. Keeps its leafage too. Doesn't mind being a bit dry. Seems to keep other invasives at bay due to persistent leaves.

Vinca is one of the plants that some gardeners hate. If you ignore it ,it becomes a problem. If allowed to spread it is then a fairly big job to remove it .

If however you give it 2 minutes attention twice a year ( cut it to 2 inches above the ground after flowering and again in early September) it is a perfectly nice plant.

The problem is that people don't do this and then they blame the plant!

I have lots of vinca plants in my customers gardens . They get 4 minutes attention per year and they are no problem at all.

Follow Anchorman's advice to the letter - cut it back hard after flowering, to about 2 inches, and again in September. If you don't, you'll have lots of bare ground with thin stems all over it, each with a rooted plant at the other end, with plenty of bare ground between for lots of weeds to root and grow. Useless as ground cover for this reason. If the area is dampish, try Ajuga reptans for ground cover, much better behaved and much more efficient at covering the ground. Otherwise, Campanula portenschlagiana will do fine in that situation, and also be efficient and attractive year round. Unlike Vinca.

Thanks All!! The slave hasn't planted it yet. We were thinking of putting it into a planter box or maybe taking it back and find something else. It sounds like a real monster. I'm worried about my roses. If it got started in that area it could be a real problem. I had a problem with my neighbors Bamboo, It took me years to get it all out, what a nightmare ---Thanks again