{"id":97,"date":"2008-06-02T04:34:08","date_gmt":"2008-06-02T12:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=97"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:02","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:02","slug":"bride-of-heuchera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/bride-of-heuchera\/","title":{"rendered":"Bride of Heuchera"},"content":{"rendered":"

BRIDE OF HEUCHERA
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Sometimes when I am in the shade plant aisle of the garden center, I imagine the great and historic horticultural wedding that took place more than a decade ago.\u00a0 The bride was tiarella, a perennial woodland plant, native to North America and Asia.\u00a0 Her origins were modest but eminently respectable.\u00a0 Guests from the groom’s side whispered approvingly that whatever else you could say, tiarella was not one of those despicable invasive types.\u00a0 Left to her own devices then and now, she is generally garbed in lobed green leaves with dark veins and crowned with delicate, almost brush-like flower stalks.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The groom, heuchera, a native North American, is still known to his friends as alum root or coral bells.\u00a0 His lobed leaves are more rounded than his bride’s and also tend to be evergreen.\u00a0 He sports tall flower stalks with small, almost bell-like blossoms.\u00a0 Like tiarella, he has always preferred the quiet life of the shade garden.\u00a0 Both blossom in spring.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Of course heuchera had been around the block a few times–horticulturally speaking.\u00a0 Even before he was paired with tiarella, he was bulked up and made over by plant breeders looking for colorful individuals willing to work in shady situations.\u00a0 As the result, nurseries and catalogs are full of handsome heuchera’s ever-increasing roster of siblings.\u00a0 I love ‘Plum Pudding’ and ‘Obsidian’, two of many cultivars with dark purple leaves.\u00a0 ‘Amber Waves’ and ‘Ginger Ale’ are relative newcomers with leaves in the ginger\/beige\/peach range, and ‘Lime Rickey’ is a great example of a chartreuse-leafed specimen.\u00a0 Some new hybrids have bi-colored leaves, with or without contrasting veins.\u00a0 Silvery foliage is also popular.\u00a0 A number of the new cultivars are snappy dressers with heavily ruffled leaves and some, like the red-flowered ‘Hollywood’ and pink-flowered ‘Fantasia’, have been bred to be especially floriferous.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I imagine that guests from the bride’s side nudged each other knowingly and murmured that these days heuchera has no trouble finding employment.\u00a0 Even before his marriage to tiarella, he had become very popular in gardening circles for his ability to liven things up in garden beds and containers.\u00a0 Enterprising gardeners might even put together old-fashioned bedding schemes using only heuchera cultivars.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The couple’s many friends, who include numerous matchmaking plant breeders, worked overtime to bring heuchera and tiarella together.\u00a0 The path to the altar was smoothed by the fact that both are members of the extensive Saxifragaceae or strawberry family.\u00a0 Dan Heims of Terra Nova Nurseries, an Oregon based plant breeding and wholesaling firm of global renown, presided over the festivities uniting these two plants.\u00a0 The wedding guests included plant merchandisers from everywhere, all of whom were delighted because the tiarella\/heuchera match seemed made in retail heaven. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So heuchera and tiarella tied the knot and, in the fullness of time, produced a family of good-looking offspring, all of whom are known as xHeucherella or simply heucherella.\u00a0 Like their parents, heucherella have colorful leaves, often marked with splashes of contrasting color.\u00a0 I especially like ‘Kimono’, with leaves that are medium green and almost star-shaped with reddish brown center stripes.\u00a0 ‘Burnished Bronze’ is a floriferous charmer with the purple foliage that distinguishes many heuchera and complimentary pale pink flowers.\u00a0 ‘Bridget Bloom’, and ‘Dayglow Pink’ have lovely bright pink flowers and ‘Sunspot’ lightens things up with chartreuse leaves marked in red.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Heuchera and tiarella’s children are off to a promising start and, if Mr. Heims and his fellow breeders have anything to say about it, the family will grow every year.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As with all colorful clans, cramming too many of the more exotic cultivars in one space might result in confusion or even riotous disarray.\u00a0 Used appropriately, members of the heuchera\/tiarella\/heucherella family can bring joy wherever they go.\u00a0 All appreciate the cooling qualities of partially shaded space and require ample moisture.\u00a0 I make mine comfortable in well mulched beds alongside congenial companions like hosta, hellebore and spiderwort.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You should be able to find heuchera, tiarella and heucherella in local nurseries and garden centers.\u00a0 Online and catalog vendors generally have a selection of these plants as well.\u00a0\u00a0 For retail suppliers of Terra Nova cultivars, go to <\/font><\/font>www.terranovanurseries.com<\/font><\/a> and click on the “Retail Sources”\u009d tab on the right hand side of the page.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRIDE OF HEUCHERA \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes when I am in the shade plant aisle of the garden center, I imagine the great and historic horticultural wedding that took place more than a decade ago.\u00a0 The bride was tiarella, a perennial woodland plant, native to North America and Asia.\u00a0 Her origins were modest but eminently respectable.\u00a0 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1685,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions\/1685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}