I must confess that until not long ago I had thought of Heuchera as a dull, unexciting plant that never did well in my garden. Then I saw some lovely specimens at West Green House and realised that Heuchera could be a very beautiful plant - given the right conditions. That last phrase is the important bit - "given the right conditions". My Heuchera had always been in a place that was far too damp and shady. In the Autumn of 2015 I dug it up and divided it into 6 little plants, which I kept over Winter in pots in a coldframe. Last Spring I planted them out in a new place, which gets a lot more light, and unsurprisingly the plants are now flourishing. A year on, they are just springing into life once more after their Winter sleep.
Later on the plants will produce tall spikes of small creamy-white flowers, but to be honest those are always insignificant compared to the deeply serrated foliage, which starts off being a bright burgundy sort of red, and gradually darkens to bronze-green as it matures.
Purple is very much the IN colour at present, so I want to show you another purple plant. This is Lysimachia ciliata "Firecracker" aka Purple Loosestrife.
I bought this plant a couple of years ago at the RHS plant-shop at Wisley, and I knew when I bought it that it spreads rapidly. Some might call it "invasive". That's OK by me, because I have put it in a corner with some other thugs - Japanese Anemone "September Charm", and Wild Garlic. They are in a place where I can control them easily enough. Each year I rip up a fair few offshoots of the Anemone, but I haven't so far had to restrict the Lysimachia, although it has grown a lot.
In the Summer the Lysimachia will produce a mass of small yellow flowers which contrast most attractively with the dark foliage.
One more non-veg plant for today: Geum "Mrs Bradshaw". I only have one specimen of it and normally it has plain orange-red flowers, like this:
This year however, one of the flowers has a yellow border to its petals:
It will be interesting to see whether the yellow appears on more of the flowers, or on just this one.
Lovely! I have one of the first ones you posted. I bought it last year and planted it by my little pond. Even though it is by the pond...no chance of it staying too damp here...nothing stays to damp in the summer here. We'll see how it does this year.
ReplyDeleteThe bees can't get enough of those insignificant flowers.
ReplyDeleteI love Heuchera and plan to incorporate a few varieties into the new border we are planning.
ReplyDelete