Spring at last
Sedums on trial

Heucheras after the winter snow

The many heucheras which have appeared in recent years are considered mainly for the quality of their foliage but also for their flowers. But while tidying up outside this afternoon, now that the snow is mostly gone, another quality was brought to mind : how do they look immediately after the winter?

In this part of the world in particular, plants which emerge from weeks or months of snow cover looking good provide immediate value in the garden. So how did the heucheras fare?

I grow a mixture of very new and less recent introductions, almost all planted or moved last year. The only one that actually died was ‘Marmalade’, with almost orange leaves, which looked great last summer – but no longer.

Most of the others are still alive though many look pretty rough; it remains to be seen how they recover for the new season. ‘Regina’ and ‘Cinnabar Silver’ both look better than most but three stand out, having emerged from snow cover looking really good.

‘Café Ole’ has emerged a pretty pinkish gold shade, but although it's more impressive than many it has too few leaves to really make a really dramatic impact.

‘Sparkling Burgundy’ is definitely more of a rosé shade than a burgundy after its many weeks under the snow but its rosette is well filled with foliage. Its look is especially impressive as it’s right on the corner of a raised bed, a bed raised by boards rather than stones, so it gets the worst of the cold. Tomorrow I’m going to move some ‘Atkinsii’ snowdrops alongside so that next year the snowdrops flower over the heuchera leaves. Should be great.

Heucheraraveon500 The star, though, is ‘Rave On’, whose prettily silvered leaves with their green veins look more or less the same as they did last summer – and there are plenty of them too, in an attractive flat rosette. Scillas or chionodoxas would be better companions than snowdrops so I must remember to order some in the summer for autumn planting. Yeah, right…

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