Some plants love hanging out!
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| Limestone cliffs on the Ashland City Greenway |
Heuchera villosa thrives on cliffs where it finds the well-drained and neutral soil it needs. It’s native to moist shaded ledges and rich rocky wooded slopes in the mountains from New York to Georgia and west in scattered locations to Missouri and Arkansas. (source)
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| Excellent drainage! |
I love that this strictly North American native is an international sensation! Gardeners all over the blogasphere sing their praises. I know for certain that one UK gardener, VP/VegPlotting adores them. Some, would even say, it’s her signature plant. Tennessee blogger extraordinaire, Frances/Fairegarden even has a seedling cross that grew in her trough planter… She named it~’H Faire Piecrust’. It’s a cutie pie!
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| Gorgeous foliage on native H americana ‘Frosted Violet’ |
The delight of heucheras, are the many colorful cultivars that have been hybridized and the varied habitats they will grow in. Most of us can grow heucheras. (Heuchera spp. and cvs., USDA Hardiness Zones 3-8) If we give them the right cultural conditions. Even the Southwestern states have their own heuchera, H sanguinea. It’s also a cliff dwelling heuchera and like others of its kind, prefers moist, well drained soil, It’s lovely with classic reddish colored flowers and scalloped green mottled foliage and is widely cultivated throughout the cooler parts of North America. In fact, the Bressingham Hybrids, are hybrids of H sanguinea. They dominated the plant world until the 1990s, when an explosion in hybridizing opened the way to more colorful and variegated foliage. It’s that foliage that’s so attractive to most gardeners. But, for Clay and Limestone~the flowers have to attract pollinators.
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| In my part of the gardening world, H villosa is my go to heuchera. |
The Bressingham Hybrid Coral Bells were a supreme failure in this garden. I thought them lovely, but, they hated the hot and humid summers. Lovers of cooler weather and moist, well drained soil; they looked spectacular for one season and then slowly disappeared. I totally gave up on them, until a few years ago, when Heuchera villosa ‘Autumn Bride’ came to live in the garden.
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| H villosa’s big and bold maple leaf shaped foliage |
Hybridizers struck gold with this Southeastern native species also known as ~ Hairy Alumroot.
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| You can see the hairs that make this Hairy Alumroot |
They crossed H villosa with its large, maple shaped leaves, a preference for dappled shade and tolerance for hot, humid summers with other coral bells and brought the gardening world more cultivars then one can imagine. Cultivars like my other favorites~H villosa ‘Brownie and H villosa ‘ Mocha’.
But, my go to heuchera is Heuchera villosa ‘Autumn Bride’. She may be a cultivar, but, she exemplifies the best characteristics of Heuchera villosa.
Isn’t she a beauty! I love Autumn Bride’s delightful late summer white flowers. They’re borne on erect, wiry stems sitting about 2 foot above the foliage, they dance in the breeze and attract my favorite pollinators~the Bumbles, honeybees and Syrphid Flies. Like other heucheras, she’s semi-evergreen, or in this case, a pale green that glows in the sunshine.
Heuchera villosa ‘Autumn Bride’ makes a big statement in my hot and humid garden. She has those big maple shaped leaves, lovely late blooming flowers that attract pollinators, tolerates heavier soils and crowding from other perennials. But, like all heucheras, they DO NOT tolerate poor drainage. So plant on a slope, plant in well draining soil, plant in containers or amend your soil to keep it free draining!
Even though, I have amended and mulched…I still lost several Autumn Bride plants. It was a rough year; flooding rains, followed by intense drought. This spring~ I’ll dig them up; add a complete landscape mix of crushed shale, humis and composted manures to the existing soil; divide and replant; and, they’ll be ready for what ever Mother Nature throws at us this year.
Now, tell me, what’s your favorite heuchera? I know you have one!
xxoogail
Welcome to Clay and Limestone’s Wildflower Wednesday celebration. WW is about sharing and celebrating wildflowers from all over this great big, beautiful world. Join us on the fourth Wednesday of each month. Remember, it doesn’t matter if they are in bloom or not~It’s winter! Please add your url to Mr Linky and leave a comment.
This post was written by Gail Eichelberger for my blog Clay and Limestone Copyright 2011.This work protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.
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