Colors You Can Almost Taste

Tiramisu, Plum Pudding, Peach Melba, Key Lime Pie, Cherries Jubilee and Crème Brule. Southern Comfort, Ginger Ale, Pinot Noir and Cafe Ole. Marmalade, Mint Chocolate, Licorice and Georgia Peach. These are all enjoyable treats, but I bet you won’t be surprised to learn that they all have something else in common. This is, after all, a gardening blog.

Can you imagine how each of these delights might translate into colors? Now picture those colors as leaves and you’ll start to get an idea of the direction I'm heading. I admit I’ve taken a rather roundabout way to get there, but all of the names I mentioned above are varieties of heucheras, commonly called coral bells, and they are all the result of a revolution. A revolution in plant breeding.

Heucheras have come a very long way from the days when Palace Purple was the standard heuchera everyone grew in their gardens. Heuchera hybrids have exploded in the last ten years, largely due to the work of three men, Charles Oliver, Dan Heims of Terra Nova Nurseries and French breeder Thierry Delabroye. There is now a perfect heuchera for every spot in the garden. Though the flowers are lovely, the foliage is the eye-catching aspect of this plant and the main reason gardeners have fallen in love with them.

Although the primary focus of these new introductions has been to create new and unusual colors for the large, heart-shaped leaves, breeding has also provided some other benefits. Many new heucheras have interesting variegation and leaf texture and form, including ruffled leaves. They also show vastly improved sun and heat tolerance.

Of course there is a catch, and that is that heucheras can be a bit fussy to grow. Rich, well-drained, neutral soil is preferred and uniform moisture is a must. They should be watered in hot, dry weather, but do not over-water. Although many of the newer varieties tolerate sun better than standard heucheras, they will do best when they get some shade in the hottest part of the day. Too much sun can cause discoloration or dieback on the leaves. Strong sun can also ‘wash out’ the leaf color. Consequently, the most vivid colors are seen in spring and late fall.

Heucheras have few pest and disease problems but in our area, frost heaving in the winter can be an issue. Mulching will help minimize this problem, but one solution is to dig and reset them deeper in the soil in the spring, keeping the crown slightly above the soil line.

These plants generally grow from 12-18 inches, not including the flower spikes. The flowers produced are an airy cluster of bell-shapes held well above the foliage. They flower in shades of red, pink, white & purple and will bloom for four to six weeks in the late spring and early summer.

In addition to his work on heucheras, Dan Heims has also developed some lovely new heucherellas, commonly called foamy bells, which are a cross between heucheras and tiarellas (foamflowers). A couple of noteworthy varieties are Stoplight and Tapestry, both of which offer beautiful variegation on the leaves.

Look for the new heucheras and heucherellas locally or online and check out Terra Nova Nurseries website at: http://www.terranovanurseries.com/wholesale/index.php.