heuchera
- To: s*@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
- Subject: heuchera
- From: C* P* <E*@AOL.COM>
- Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 21:48:17 EDT
Shadegardeners,
How are you handling the heucheras? Do they grow out of the soil and look
like exposed knobby roots? Mine look like pots of rhizomatous begonias
crawling every which way and not attractive. Now, the begonias can stay in a
pot and the crawling about becomes attractive. The heucheras look needy.
I dig them up every spring and replant lower in the ground, spreading them
about in drifts as that is how I like to plant. I have some of a good
red-purple color with a small white flower that looks good in the shady
gardens. I have lost the tags. This plant is a chore each spring and not
meeting my shady garden criteria of being able to grow without care when care
may not be available on a schedule. Later in the summer the dividing is not
kindly accepted by the plant.
Heucheras (also tiarella and pulmonaria) having become the newest
collectables in the shade all seem to need frequent division. Bertram
Anderson, pulmonaria, excepted, it has a tap root.
Today's chores ended with three clumps upended and about fifty divisions
resulting. Have you left the plants in place? What happens? Mine do not
seem to do well undivided. The divided plants are larger of leaf and are
more lush.
Rethinking heuchera,
Claire Peplowski
East Nassau, NY
z4
