Plant of the week: Heuchera

Fancy a ‘Cherry Cola’ and ‘Southern Comfort’ then our plant of the week is just for you. The wonderful and very versatile Heuchera which makes the most stunning container plants which can even bring vibrancy on a dull winters day either in the ground or used in a hanging basket. The stunning foliage comes in shades of raspberry, orange, purples with frosted and marbled affect, vibrant lime greens to matt black finish.

Heuchera are more or less evergreen, clump-forming perennials with attractive, rounded, shallowly palmately lobed leaves and racemes or panicles of small, tubular flowers, often with colourful calyces. Heucheras are very easy to grow and really don’t require much attention. Trim plants up in spring removing any old, marked leaves, but never cut into the crown. Feed plants with a balanced fertiliser, but don’t overdo it or they will bolt. Sticking to each plant’s sun or shade requirements means they are more likely to succeed. They can also be divided in spring. Vine weevil can affect plants but using a nematode based treatment easily controls this pest.

There are many different varieties but this gives a taster of the varieties we currently have in stock.

‘Southern Comfort’ is a clump-forming, coral bells hybrid. It is most noted for the variable color of its rounded leaves (each to 9″ wide). Leaves emerge cinnamon-peach but mature to burnished copper and eventually to amber. The foliage typically forms a mound to 10-14” tall and to 18-24” wide. Small white flowers borne in open, airy panicles appear in late summer on slender, wiry stems rising above the foliage mound, typically to 18-22″ tall.

‘Cherry Cola’ is a clump-forming, mounded, semi-evergreen to evergreen perennial with rounded, lobed, reddish-brown leaves and slender, wiry, dark red stems bearing open panicles of small, red flowers from late spring into summer.

‘Sweet Tea’ For the non drinker this compact, clump-forming, semi-evergreen perennial bearing mounds of lobed, dark-veined, orange-red leaves that darken in summer and lighten in autumn. In late spring and early summer, open panicles of small, white flowers bloom on wiry stems.

‘Obsidian’ is a clump-forming, semi-evergreen perennial with smooth, glossy, rounded, lobed, dark purple-black leaves and tall red stems bearing loose panicles of ivory flowers in summer.

‘Palace Purple’ is a mound-forming, semi-evergreen perennial with ivy-like, purple leaves with red undersides. Panicles of small, pinkish-white, bell-shaped flowers are borne on slender, dark-red stems in late spring to early summer.

‘Electra’ is a compact, clump-forming, semi-evergeen perennial with rounded, lobed, bright golden leaves with red veins, changing to shades of tan in winter. It bears loose panicles of white flowers on slender, erect stems in late spring and throughout summer