New to heucheras

I'm getting some heucheras, heucherellas, and tiarellas from the recent co-op. I've never grown these before. Any special planting instructions I should know about or is this the usual dig the hole, mix in compost, and plant?

I did note that it was mentioned in a post to plant the light colored leaves more in shade and the darker leaves more in sun, so will try and plan for that. If I put something in an area that doesn't get enough light, do these transplant well if I need to move it later?

Gwen

Hi Gwen,

The plants we'll be getting from the co-op are small plugs. They will need to be potted and left in the pots for about 6 weeks or so, so they can finish developing. I plan on leaving mine in for 8 weeks. If you put them right in, you may lose them.

I have found that they do transplant o.k. not the best, but not the worst. You really need to keep them well watered when you transplant them. This is what I have found in my zone,,,maybe won't be the same for yours. With luck, someone from your zone will pop in and have more helpful zonal answers.

Kelly

I've had heucheras only a year. I have found they are very forgiving of being moved. Some have been moved twice since last year. A bonus I discovered, the larger ones I've moved have virtually divided themselves! Just separated into two right down the middle in the process and both halves doing just great. I soaked them well both before and after moving of course. New leaves coming out and very perky!

Hi Gwen,
I found that my darker one, Obsidian, absolutely hates the sun.....it just nearly fried up and turned crunchy for lack of a better word. So I moved it to a shadier spot, where the hot afternoon sun filters through the trees. Now it's putting on more growth and looking happy as a lark. I guess, it's a bit of trial and error depending on your zone and I don't always believe where the tag says to situate (too generic). I agree, they do seem to take transplanting quite well.

Erynne

Are the ones from Woodthrush's co-op also plugs? They cost a bit more so I'm thinking maybe they're not.

I've ordered from so many co-ops that I was having trouble keeping things straight but now I'm making notes! I did know I had to pot up the plugs but couldn't remember what was coming as plugs and what wasn't. I was actually thinking to keep them in pots for a year, but that's not necessary? I'd rather get them in the ground for the winter.

Do you think heucheras look nice with hostas? Any 'designing' advice as to placing them in the yard? As in what they look good with? I always think the burgandy leaved plants look good next to green foliage and things with white flowers too. Rather than having all the burgandy foliage together.

I do have a chocolate garden I started last year with plants that are either dark burgandy colored, chocolate smelling (very few) or have chocolate in the name and I like them. A lot of the heucheras I ordered from your co-op will be going there. But I also have some areas beneath maples (both burgandy-leaf and also green - they're in different areas) that I thought to put them in. Then there's an area that gets very pretty filtered sun beneath some cedars and firs. For unknown reasons weeds and blackberries haven't taken over that area, it's still mostly needle cover on the ground. It may be dry altho it shouldn't be esp as it adjoins the drain field.

Anyway, as I'm picking up my first 'big' co-op order tomorrow which includes hostas and hellebores, I'm sitting down today and looking up every plant I ordered from all the co-ops combined to see photos on the 'net and then making notes where I might want to plant.

Gwen

A chocolate garden!! Too cool! Do you have Eupatorium rugosum "Chocolate"? I love that plant for it's foliage and dainty white flowers.
I think hostas and heucheras make perfect bed mates. I like the look of the dark heucheras beside lime-coloured hostas. I'm in the process of working on my back garden where most of my hostas and heucheras will reside. The design process kinda stumps me though but I will play with it.

Erynne

Not yet! I have never even heard of it but I looked it up on the net and I love it.

Just so happens, this little gem of a nursery - http://chocolateflowerfarm.com/ - is 5 minutes from my house and I was planning a little trip there this afternoon, so I'll be sure and ask for it! The website says it'll be avail in May, so hopefully. If not, she's very good about saving things for me.

Gwen

Gwen,

Chocolate garden,,,I'll have to remember that one,,,sounds fun! OOOO, just looked at your link and I'm sorry I did,,,not really,,,lol I'll be looking at their site, I just spied their Chocolate Columbine,,,definitely have to look around there more. Thanks for the link. How great that they are so close to you.

I do believe the Heucheras will be plugs from both co-ops. If you want, you could put the pots in the ground for the winter.

Kelly

That's what I do. I have more pots in the ground than plants in the ground. LOL

I hit the jackpot today at the plant place. I will post a picture if I get a chance.

I have heuchera, heucherellas, tiarellas, astilbes all planted among my hosta. Looks great.

Susan
=^..^=

Susan,

I wanna see,,,,,,good for you!

Trying to decide where to put the new thread. Do you want it here or in hostas, there are both things and more besides. LOL

Susan
=^..^=

Susan,

Wherever you put it is fine,,,just let us know here with the link. Will you have room in the car or will you have to rent a trailer???? LOL

here it is
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/599038/
Susan
=^..^=

Hi Gwen,

Had to chime in because in my experience, your statement about the colour of the leaves and whether they like sun or shade is the reverse of what I've found. This is what I've found in my garden: Generally the darker, purple leaved heucheras prefer a dappled shade and the green ones can take the sun.

In my garden, the coloured varieties don't do their best with direct sun, except maybe some morning sun. They like dappled, filtered sun the best out of anything I've tried. I've tried them in the sun because alot of times, the tag says they'll take the sun. Yeah, they tolerate the sun and don't exactly die, but, like Erynne's experience with Obsidian, they kind of fry and look exhausted. That goes for all the colours in between as well like lime, and peach and yellow. So far, they all seem to prefer the filtered/dappled sun scenario.

The heucheras that like the full sun are those that are related to sanguinea, like the common green one 'Splendens', or variegated ones like Snow Angel.

Well, that's been my experience, anyways.

Purple leaved heuchs stand out nicely with a lime heuchera like Lime Rickey, or with the silvery leaves of Brunnera 'Jack Frost' or Japanese Painted Fern, and also looks great with a very blue hosta. I keep looking for more nice combos.

Sandy

Sandy,

Glad to see you come in out of the garden again,,,,LOL

i guess i will pot mine and put them in the GH for a while and spray them with mighty plant before putting them in the new shade garden!!!

Messenger!!! Mighty plant is the fertilizer. Messenger is the growth hormone or something that works wonders.

;-)

Susan
=^..^=

i have both kinds and use them 10x as often as they say too-been using them for 2yrs now and they really do wonders on the plants

Me too. Isn't it funny. They are nice aren't they?
Susan
=^..^=

Gwendalou, I was thrilled to see another chocolate garden grower. I just planted one last week in honor of my son who is currently studying baking. I will also include honey and maybe vanilla to this bed. I didn't know about the nursery you mentioned, so I will check it out to see how I did for my selection. I imagine you just cost me big bucks! I have most of the plants listed in my garden journal under location as chocolate garden. I'll post a picture of it as soon as it is a little more photogenic. I ordered iris for it that won't be shipped until mid summer. I thought I didn't need much space, but I have realized it is already too small. The story of every plantaholic! Patti

Patti, I'd love to see photos of it!

You'll be wanting to include cinammon! If you're going to turn it into a baking garden, you could start including all the scented geraniums! I love those. But you'd have to have them in pots as they aren't hardy to your area (mine either).

Gwen

Gwendalou, Funny you should mention Cinnamon. It is my son's favorite. He chews on the sticks. We always give him a bundle at Christmas. I grow scented geraniums in our green house. Some we have had since 1983 so the stems are huge. Too big for pots so they live in the permanent beds in the GH.

Oh my, that's gorgeous! I take it that's heated?

Our greenhouse is more of a workplace. It's not heated so I can't overwinter plants there. I brought my scented geraniums indoors this year into the sunroom. They just grow straight up and get real ugly. I have to cut them back and see if they'll branch off. Otherwise I fear they're toast.

Gwen

It was built as a passive solar heat source for our house, so the only heat is from the part of the wood stove pipe which is vented out of the house for about 8' (the stove is in the house) and then back into the chimney. You can see it in the picture at the far end of the GH. It get cold at night and on cloudy days, but with the massive grey concrete walls and beds and the brick floor, it absorbs a lot of heat that then radiate out at night. We have lost very few plants because of the cold. We don't light the woodstove until it starts to get dark (3 or 4 in the winter) and use our back up heat as little as possible. On cold sunny days the house gets too hot at times. It has worked very very well for us. The wood used was recycled from a Rheingold brewery in NY in 1982 from vats that where being taken apart. It used to have a faint beer smell. The glass is standard sliding glass door panels. Three have finally lost their seal and need to be replaced. We have an old chain pull which opens up a vent to let out the excess heat, so nothing is complicated. I just emptied most of it out for the summer, so here is the before and after shots. Patti

It's totally charming! The concrete would help with heat retention!

Ours is just a stand alone thing, plain old glass (the dangerous kind) and rickety wood. The doors (there are two, one at either end) have gaps so that if I were to heat it, warm air would be lost easily and boy, would that be cost inefficient! I have a little heater I take in there in the winter if I want to work in there and it's cold. I've only used it a few times tho. If it's that miserable out, I'm not that interested in being out there either.

You have places to plant in dirt right in there, don't you? That's what the photos look like. Your plants in there are so pretty! And I like the table in the corner too.

Gwen

Yes the GH has two long beds that are 22" high and 24" wide by a total length of 22' for both . They have no bottom for drainage. There are also two smaller built in beds, so we have a lot of good planting space in these beds and as they have wide ledges we can line the fronts with potted plants. The floors are set in sand , again for drainage. We have a sink and a small work area at one end and an eating area at the other. We use to have a big table for 6, but the plants took over the space and I downsized to a 4 top. The primary purpose for the GH was in this order when we built the house, heat, plants and lastly for living space. But it has become central to our living experience most of the year. We had a friend who after seeing ours has collected old double paned doors from recycle and has built a similar structure. The key is that much of it is sunken on the south side, so it is protected from the hard frost ( maybe a total of 4 feet). Also this would give us the right pitch for the windows. And that almost all the surfaces are concrete block walls that are parged with gray paint or brick and that is is aligned due north south with no trees blocking the sun. Needless to say we love the GH. Patti

Gwendalou, Here is a collage of my new chocolate, honey, vanilla and soon to be add, cinnamon bed (thanks to you) I'll send you more when it is more presentable. I have ordered more brownish plants from the co-ops. We have a nice rainy day going on here, so I am playing on the computer after having been out taking pictures between showers this morning. Patti

This message was edited Jun 2, 2006 1:48 PM

Very pretty plants! How do you do the collage thing? I only know how to do one photo at a time.

I'll have to take a photo of mine to post (after I pull some weeds!) in a day or so.

Do you have a list of the plants that you have in there? It's really pretty. Love the irises (if that's what those are). I don't think I've put any in mine yet. They aren't colors that I would normally like in an iris, except in a chocolate garden, where I think they look really stunning now that I've seen yours.

Gwen

The collage comes from a free program from Google www.picasa.com which is super simple to use. I'll send you a list of the plants, but not tonight. I've been updating my journal and I am tired of this computer. You could go to my journal and look at location for anything in the chocolate bed. I just realized that you can't access the whole list at once, so location doesn't work. Patti

This message was edited Jun 2, 2006 7:09 PM

gwendalou, here is the list in the choc. bed so far: eupatorium choc, heuchera (amber waves, fireworks, greenspice), rose hot cocoa, geranium victor reiter jr, papaver patty's plum, salvia purple knockout, black mondo grass, actaea black negligee and brunette, armeria rubrifolia, viola velour blue &bronze, and velour frosted choc, arctotis killerton red
( I'll winter in over in the gh) mazus radicans, heiracium leopard, anthriscus ravenswing, lychnis molton lava, aquilegia william guiness, penstemon husker's red, choc. cosmos(winter over in GH) iris( champagne elegance, red at night, cimarron strip), gladiolus dusk, snapdragon red rocket, and a few more that I have no clue as to what they are. I still have a bunch of plants coming from co-ops of which some will be planted in this bed. How about your list of plants that I don't have. I have a big clump of daffodils that need moving after they yellow, so I will have more space then. I have a big ligularia to include in this space , but I will wait until fall. Patti

Wow - the collage is great - and Gwen, heucheras do really well here on the island and, like someone said in an earlier note, most of them divide easily. I have a ton of Raspberry Ice potted up in 4" pots - I'd be happy to save one for you if you'd like. One of my friends and I are having a plant sale this coming weekend and I will be selling some stuff - however, I much prefer just sharing with friends so let me know and I'll keep out one of the best!

I have what I call my "H" Garden - Hydrangea, Hellebores, Hostas, and Heuchera, with very few other things mixed in. My husband asked me if I was going to keep the evergreen in back of all these and I informed him it is a Hevergreen! Silly man.

Carole

I'd love some raspberry ice, thank you! I have bought quite a few heucheras from the recent co-ops. I have them in pots still. I guess I'll put them in the ground in the fall. I'm wondering if I can group them together, the ones I have more than one plant of, in order to have a bigger clump. Or should I not do that as they'll get too crowded?

About your H garden - in our garden, all the H's are together as well, and I never even realized that until you pointed this out. LOL They were here when we got here. No heucheras but a lot of hydrangea (in that one spot as well as elsewhere), 3 hostas (which are doing fabulously this year compared to last year - our first season in the house - and then a couple hellebores which I believe need dividing as they are looking large and raggedy. I have to learn how to do that and when. There's also a lot of lily of the valley and a camelia there so I guess I can't call it the H garden technically!

Gwen

Here's my list of what I have in there. The list is more impressive than the garden itself! Nothing is really doing anything right now and I have a bunch of ugly tulip leaves everywhere. I bought black and white tulips from Costco that turned out to be purple and white! I have to eventually move the purples out of there. In the meantime I'm wondering why my stuff isn't growing better! Lots of weeds that I don't want to pull in case I pull the wrong thing. I always wait for the 'good' stuff to get a little more grown so I can tell what I'm doing. In the meantime, weeds are taking over.

Bergenia bressingham ruby
Carex
Cosmos atrosanguineus (Chocolate Cosmos)
Digitalis parviflora milk chocolate (chocolate foxglove)
Heuchera black beauty
Heuchera chocolate ruffles
Origanum rotundifolium 'Kent Beauty'
Penstemon whippleanus 'Chocolate Drop'
Potentilla Monarch’s Velvet
Salvia africana-lutea (Chocolate Salvia)
Sedum xenox
Sisyrinchium Quaint and Queer
Viola bowles black

I have some stuff coming from co-ops to add, like a chocolate iris, some more heucheras I may put in there. I need to get more filler stuff. I also need a couple years of growth! Guess I just have to be patient.

One other thing I need to do is to either remove or cut way back a large butterfly bush that's creating too much shade. Also limb up some ugly pines that are shading things.

Gwen

I'm also new to Heucheras. I don't have any yet but I think they are so pretty. So many varieties. I live in Tx. zone 8b. Do you think they will grow well here? I have a few gardens that get shade from about 2pm on. It is very very hot and humid here right now. And very dry.


Lin

And I too am new to Heucheras. I just bought 3 ...and one I remember is 'Dolce Creme Brulee.' Another I just got for 25 cents at Lowe's yesterday! --with no accompanying card or labeling, or course!!

I love colored foliage, so I"m excited about this type of plant, as the beds I have yet to develop are under trees.

Can I join this "nice" "Heucher" club?!!! :)

Good name for the club, Connie! It will be fun to see what happen with your 25 cent plant - could end up being a favorite of everyone's!

I adore Heucheras and this morning did some interesting reading on them. I joined the Northwest Perennial Alliance a couple weeks ago and just received the first newsletter. In it was an article on Heucheras (prompted by a question from a member). The author advised that even if it says "full sun that for Heuchera that means morning sun, filtered afternoon sun, a northern exposure, woodland openings, and edges. They like woodland soil, too: mosit, cool, somewhat acidic, and high in organic matter. In a spot where they have to endure intense light and reflected heat, or suffer occasional summer drought (such as in a container planting that dries out while you're on vacation) their foliage may start to crisp around the edges, and in the case of cultivars with golden- and amber-colored foliage, even start to look washed out." I quote this because I've had this happen with the gorgeous Creme Brulee's that are in the picture earlier in this post. I about cried, but now I know what to do - move them out of the sun!!! And I think I'll snip off the crispy critters.

I have Palace Purple, Raspberry Ice, Crimson Curl, and Marmalade all in more or less direct sun and they are doing fine, but maybe because the Creme Brulee's were in pots this occurred? Anyway, just a little tidbit that made me open my eyes.

There's more to this article on how "Heucheras age badly" if anyone is interested, I'll be glad to share.

It definitely did NOT diminish my love for them!!!

PLEASE share ....

Susan
=^..^=

okedoke . . . here goes . . . This is from The PERENNIAL POST, Summer Edition (Northwest Perennial Alliance):

"Heucheras age badly -- their crowns begin to rise up above the soil leaving them exposed to the elements, and then they suddenly die. To keep plants vigorous, they should be divided every three to four years: lift the crown when growth has begun in the spring and separate it into small sections, each with healthy roots and several strong shoots, and replant. Discard the old, pithy crown. Groom plants in the spring by removing some of the old, tattered leaves, and while you're at it, feed the soil around them with a couple of inches of good organic mulch (taking care not to cover the crown)."

This was written by someone named Irene Mills and she quotes a man named Larry Hodgson. I have no idea who either of these people are, but from my recent experience, it sounds reasonable.

And, I was in the yard today (gee, what a surprise) and saw that my Marmalade is not appreciating the hot sun. Sigh . . . I think I'll risk moving it tomorrow. I adore it and sure don't want to have it burn up on me!!

Thanks for letting me share this - I know there are many really knowledgable people (I'm not one of them) who are into Heucheras so this info probably should be taken "with a grain of salt!"

I certainly agree with the crowns begin to rise up above the soil leaving them exposed to the elements, and then they suddenly die....mine have all done this. I almost didn't want to get new ones but now I know what to do, maybe all is saved. LOL

Thank you for posting this information, it is helping me a lot!!

Susan
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Murmer, thanks for sharing. I'm new to heucheras too... many new plugs and I've lost a couple due to sun/shade issues I think. None yet old enough to "rise" except a few Palace Purples I've already relocated and divided in ignorance. Luckily!