Pretty heuchera leaf
I’d heard all the fuss. Yes, they looked nice in catalog pictures. Even when I found I’d inherited a couple in my new garden, I didn’t really get heucheras.
Annie in Austin came over the day after we moved in for a quick tour of the garden-to-be before we took off on the Austin Open Days tour last October, and she pointed out this lonely heuchera stuck in the back of a bed next to a couple of hostas. Mmm, I think I said.
A week ago I took pity on it, all alone and neglected next to those shriveled hostas, and I moved it to the front of my raised stone bed next to the ‘Diamond Frost’ euphorbia and the white-trunked Texas persimmon. It looks great! Its silver leaves play off the airy white flowers of the euphorbia and the white trunks behind it. Most important, it’s high enough off the ground, in the raised bed, to really see it and appreciate the frosted coloring of its leaves.
I’m a convert. Does anyone know which variety this is? ‘Pewter Veil’ perhaps? I also inherited a lonely bronze-colored heuchera that I replanted elsewhere. More on that one later.
All material © 2006-2009 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Hi Pam, of course you could find a way to highlight the lovely heuchera with the white flowers nearby, but there are so many cultivars now, I don’t know how anyone can rightly ID them, sort of like the daylilies, so many similar ones. The private nursery of your old garden is a boon! The new owners, there WILL be new owners, won’t miss what you have taken at all and the plants have meaning for you beyond their usefulness in your new designs. Someday I may be doing the same thing in a new garden and plan to shop at home like you. 🙂 BTW, I have germinated Cuphea seeds, a mix from Thompson and Morgan, hope I get some like your pretty ones.
Frances
Thanks, Frances, as always, for the encouragement. It’s hard for me to imagine you leaving your beautiful Faire Garden, but I know you’ve done it before and expect that you’ll be doing it again one day. Shopping at home is great if you can be unhurried. I can’t imagine trying to take very many plants if I had to leave a house in just a couple of weeks or were facing a cross-country move. Good luck with your cupheas. I look forward to seeing them online this summer. —Pam
Pam — that does look like Pewter Veil, but I can’t say for sure.
Here’s my “heuchera dream” — I want to take a patchwork quilt design and create a heuchera garden with the different colors available. I think the mounding forms will work nicely. I can’t do it, since the bunnies (or deer in winter) eat my heucheras down to the ground.
Cameron
A quilt of heucheras sounds smashing. Don’t you have the space for it inside your deer-proof fence, Cameron? Or perhaps it isn’t bunny-proof? —Pam
I’m afraid I don’t know anything about these, so can’t help you out much. That variegated leaf is pretty, though. I’d love to see a pic of it in place with its neighbors to get the full effect.
Hi, Susan. I hope to succeed with that shot one day, but so far I haven’t been able to capture those three elements on “film” the way I see them. I’ll keep trying though. —Pam
Hi Pam, it does look like Pewter Veil, but as Frances said there are so many of them now it’s hard to tell. There are so many with different names that really seem like the same variety just coming from different growers.
I love heucheras. Even though they are small, since most of them keep their foliage over the winter here they add interest to the winter garden. The overwintering foliage looks pretty tattered by spring here, so we just cut them back to encourage fresh growth in the early spring.
Hi, Linda. It is nice to have the foliage through the winter. If the two I inherited survive the summer in good shape, I’m going to have to add more. —Pam
Pam, I totally agree with Frances…I knew you would find a way to make the heuchera shine. Don’t you love it when another gardener points something out! It’s such a gift to have another set of garden eyes. I want to recommend that you look for heucheras with villosa in their parentage…they are happier in the south. Happy gardening! gail
Thanks for the heuchera tip, Gail. I’m going to be watching the two I inherited to see how they hold up in the summer. After that I’ll know if they’re really worth keeping. —Pam
Sorry can’t help you with the id Pam, but the colors are wonderful and it looks like you found a place to make it shine in your garden. I’ve been a convert to Heucheras for a few years now. I love the colorful foliage in the shade garden, it makes up for their not so special blooms. 🙂
Yes, I’m really enjoying the pretty foliage. The other popular shade-lover, hostas, don’t generally grow well in Austin’s climate, so it’s nice to have an alternative in heucheras. Summer survival will be the true test though. —Pam
I had one of these that lasted a couple of years, coming back after a frost in the spring. But finally I lost it. Then a couple of weeks ago, I saw just a few lone Heucheras still stuck at Home Depot, waiting on someone to take pity on them and carry them home to a garden. So I did. I just now covered it, as we’re having a freeze tonight. Fingers crossed on this one!
Brenda
My fingers are crossed. But it sounds like plenty of northern gardeners grow them, and they survive even under snow. I bet they’ll be fine. —Pam
Sorry, I don’t know which one it is but I just love heucheras. There is one for every color scheme it seems.
So it seems. If these do well this summer, I’m sure I’ll be looking for more. I have a lot of shade in the back yard. —Pam
My fence isn’t bunny proof. 🙁
Rats! —Pam
Pam, I was wondering if you took your birdhouse that I love so much. If so will you be planting another ‘Belinda’ rose bush to go with it? I always adored that combination.
Robin, it was starting to fall apart, so we took it down from the old garden. I haven’t decided whether to try to rehabilitate it yet. But I’m not planning for my new garden to be quite so cottagey, so I’m not sure whether I’d use it anyway. It did look pretty with ‘Belinda’s Dream,’ but I left that behind too. Maybe you’ll plant one and put up a birdhouse, and I can enjoy that combo again on your blog. 😉 —Pam
Aha! Pam gets bitten by the Heuchera bug? I’m not sure which one this is; as Frances says, there are just soooooo many heucheras (and for fun, heucherellas too, crossed between heucheras and tiarella) that it’s hard to be sure which this is. But I warn you, my Austin friend…they’re like potato chips. You can’t have just one. I’ll look forward to watching your collection grow and grow and grow…especially since you have great drainage, which they love. I have intermediate success with them here, because they don’t like winter wet and cranky clay soil.
We typically have wet winters too, but not this year. But I do have good drainage at this house. The true test for my garden will be summer. I don’t coddle with a lot of watering, so if they look good when September rolls around, I’ll know I have a keeper. —Pam
Pam — what’s to not love about Heucheras? This looks much paler than my Pewter Veil which is more merlot flushed with silver. They look good in my garden til the snow gets them. And even though they come out at the other end of winter pretty tattered, they are one of the first plants to start growing and look good very early — whether you cut them back or not. Mine are quite old and if they really get ratty, I just divide them. They also grow in very dry shade in my garden which is another reason to love them.
Whoo-hoo! I’ve got dry shade—lots of it. I hope they’ll do well here. They’re so pretty that I know I’ll want more. But not if they wimp out in our summers. —Pam
I discovered the joys of Heucheras this year also. I have one in a large container that withstood the drought of summer and is still alive although it is freezing. Yours is an especially nice color.
Donna
Withstanding the drought of last summer is good news. Thanks for the thumbs-up. —Pam
Pam, this is exciting! I’ve heard they can be tough to grow here. Please keep us posted, though obviously it’s been there for awhile. Linda
There were two different varieties when I moved in. Now, I don’t know how often the former owners watered, but I can tell you I didn’t water much through the fall, and they looked great last week when I transplanted them. So if they can just take the heat, I know they can take dry soil. —Pam
Hi Pam– I’m a newbie and love your blog. I’m a heuchera addict. I think you might have ‘Green Spice’ but I’m not sure because the foliage takes on different colors in winter. A bonus I think. If you’d like to see some great photos go to Terra Nova’s website. I think it’s http://www.terranovanurseries.com Dan Heims is the owner and the man to thank for all the awesome cultivars.
Hmm, it is hard to tell. Thanks for the link though. I had fun looking at all the pretty colors of the heucheras. —Pam
I’d love to have that combination in my garden one day. For some reason it always made me feel happy to see it and it was quite a photogenic scene.
Thank you, Robin. I’d love to see it in your garden and feel sure ‘Belinda’s Dream’ would grow well for you. Then you would enjoy the fragrance and softness of the petals as well as the sight of them. Now I’m feeling nostalgic for it! —Pam
I hope the heucheras will continue to thrive for you, Pam. I’ve tried them several times but the heat and humidity always does them in within a couple of months.
Hi, Cindy. Hmm, that doesn’t bode well for mine then. I guess only time will tell. —Pam
Oooh, nice heuchera. I grew a plain green version for the flowers and a burgundy version in WI, but I was under the impression that they didn’t grow down here. I’m curious to see how yours does.
I’m watching and waiting with anticipation too. I’ll have a full report after next summer. —Pam
Pam, I am glad you liked your rosebud as I depicted it. I wanted the picture to be lighter as your photo is but somehow I always seem to use more saturated colors. Oh well, I need the practice.
If the practice is as fun as the result, that’s all you need for a satisfying hobby. That’s how I feel about gardening. —Pam
It would be tough to definitively identify this one, there are so many heucheras out there now. I’ve always loved them. In fact, when I was first getting started in gardening, I asked Mom, “What is that neat plant you have that has the teeny flowers sticking up out of the plant with the pretty leaves?” I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I wanted it! ‘Peach Flambe’ is one of my favorites of the varieties I have now.
The names are as fun as the leaf colors. ‘Peach Flambe’ sounds yummy. —Pam