Heuchera Haul

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Clockwise from top left: 1. Front door pot arrangement complete with 'Silverlight' 2. 'Green Spice' 3. 'Lime Rickey' with grasshopper 4. 'Ebony & Ivory' flower 5. 'Key Lime Pie' 6. 'Ebony & Ivory' 7. 'Obsidian' 8. 'Liquorice' 9. Mislabelled - should be Green Spice & Key Lime Pie, but nothing like them!

Heuchera are valued for their foliage, providing year-round border edging interest in the garden and in a wide variety of colours from the lightest, zingiest green to the darkest, almost black. They provide a perfect foil for the other, more showy plants, as well as being of interest in their own right. Visit any show garden or nursery display at a garden show and I can pretty much guarantee they'll be there, working really hard to ensure top marks. However, you don't need to confine them to your borders - they look equally good and at home in a large pot.

I hadn't heard of Heuchera until I came to plant up my new borders in 2000. I read about them in Gardeners' World magazine whilst the garden's hardscaping was being done and was instantly hooked. I love their foliage and variety of colours. My local garden centre had a big display of them at the time and I was like a child in a sweet shop and had to stop myself from buying the lot. Whenever I visit a show, I have to repeat the mantra 'I haven't got room for any more Heuchera' many times as I go round. However, I often come out of my trance a few hours later and find at least a couple of them are in my arms waiting to be paid for. How did that happen? At the last count I had over 20 of them in my front and back garden borders. Plus a couple in pots. Oh and another couple of them in the nursery area waiting to be planted out.

I think their flowers are beautiful too. They're usually a deep red (hence their common name 'Coral Flower'), pink or white. Each flower is tiny, but there are hundreds per stem, making a frothy, see-through display about 2 foot high in the border. A close-up view reveals their beauty and bees love them too. The flower stems can be cut back in the autumn, or left until spring to create some additional winter interest in the garden.

Heuchera are easy to look after - they do have a reputation of easing themselves out of the soil, but that hasn't happened so far in my clayey garden. If it does happen to you, then just firm them back down again. This may also provide the perfect opportunity to split out chunks of the root to make more plants. Some of the foliage can get a bit ragged in the winter, but trim this out in the spring and you'll be rewarded with lots of new growth. They're happy in sun or shade, though the amber coloured ones can get a bit washed out looking in a very sunny position. They like neutral or slightly alkaline soils and can withstand drought, even though their preferred position is in a moist, but well drained soil. They're mainly pest free, though the dreaded vine weevil can be partial to them - the usual treatments available should cure this problem.

Whilst I do love Heuchera, I don't think all of them are successful in my garden. I find the paler, more gingery forms take a long time to get established (if they survive at all) and I'm not really a fan of their colour anyway. This is Creme Brulee - I quite like the darker leaf shown here, but the majority of them are the paler colour as shown in the picture's background, which I don't like at all. What do you think? The newer Peach Flambe is meant to be a lot better, but I'm still to be convinced.

What's the favourite plant you use for foliage or year-round interest?

Clematis Carousel

As a flowering group I find Clematis hard to beat. Even their seed heads are beautiful as this picture of C. 'Nelly Moser' shows. From tiny, delicate flowers to large, blowsy dinner plate blooms, they add effortless height to my borders. With some judicious choosing and placing, I manage to have Clematis in bloom every month of the year.

I currently have the following Clematis in flower - these came into flower during July and are still going strong:

Clockwise from top left:

1. C. 'Souvenir du Capitaine Thuilleaux' (2nd flush) 2. C. 'Arabella' (in bloom from May to October usually) 3. C. 'The President' (2nd flush) 4. C. 'Polish Spirit' 5. C. 'Crystal Fountain'? (2nd flush) 6. C. 'Kermesina' - stubbornly flowering on the other side of the fence at the moment 7. C. alpina 'Francis Rivis' - this spring flowering Clematis always seems to bloom again for me 8. C. 'Hagley Hybrid' (2nd flush) 9. C. 'Jackmanii Superba'

From November to March/April, Clematis cirrhosa 'Balearica' is my sole flowerer. Soon it will be joined by its relative, 'Freckles'. I'm growing them on a sheltered, west facing wall, which encourages a prolonged season of flowering. They're different to most Clematis, being evergreen and with a fluted, almost oak-like leaf. I chose 'Balearica', not only because of its winter interest, but also because I've been volunteering as a freshwater biologist on a wetland project in Mallorca, so it's a reminder of happy times out there.

From March to May Clematis montana var. Rubens 'Elizabeth' (opposite) and C. Alpina 'Francis Rivis' (see above) hold the show. The latter has draped itself over a Corkscrew Hazel (Corylus avellana 'Contorta'), thus adding interest to this tree during its dull, leafy phase. During May, my Clematis display really gets going - these will flower until the end of June:

Clockwise from top left:

1. C. 'Guernsey Cream' 2. C. 'Miss Bateman' 3. C. 'Dorothy Walton' 4. C. 'Elsa Spath' & C. 'Hagley Hybrid' 5. C. 'Ville de Lyon' 6. C. 'Daniel Deronda' 7. C. 'Josephine' 8. C. 'Nelly Moser' 9. C. 'Josephine', C. 'Souvenir du Capitaine Thuilleaux' & mystery Clematis

So now we're back to the current display shown at the start of this post, which have been flowering since July. These will be joined later in August by others such as C. 'Elsa Spath' and C. 'Josephine'. 'Elsa Spath' in particular flowers late on into the year - last year, only the hard frosts experienced at the end of November bought its flowershow to an end and by then, C. cirrhosa 'Balearica' was ready to take over the baton.

My mystery Clematis









This is my floosiest of them all and I adore it. It's meant to be C. 'Crystal Fountain', but the flowers are nothing like those shown on the label. I can't match it with any other Clematis in the catalogues either. Can you help?

I have 30 varieties of Clematis spread over my front and back gardens. I've had to employ a little ingenuity to fit in the last 9 of them. I not only wanted to have more Clematis in the garden, I also wanted to add height to some of my borders. My solution was to buy 3 obelisks and to have 3 Clematis of the same pruning group grow up each of them.

We also have a lot of bare fences with no soil in which to grow plants. I've been experimenting with growing some potted Clematis up these. Success has been variable so far - 'Miss Bateman' has decided she'd prefer to trail rather than grow up the trellis provided! 'Polish Spirit' shown in the first collage has been much more successful though.

Do you have a favourite flowering plant group? Tell me about it...

Update - September 2008
The esteemed Raymond Evison has solved the case of my mystery Clematis. It's a sport - you may like to read more about it here. It turns out I have not one, but two new Clematis in my garden!

Seasonal Variations

Of course we're not confined to how the garden looks at the moment. This slideshow (32 photographs) has a selection of garden views and plants from when Veg Plotting started in November 2007, through to July 2008.

If you want to look at a particular image for longer, place your mouse pointer over it and the pages will stop turning.

If a black screen with a large orange arrow appears whilst you are viewing the slideshow or is there already when you reach this section, click on the x at the top right hand corner of the screen to start the slideshow again.

Update - October 2008
I've also added my monthly flower slideshows from Veg Plotting, plus June's foliage extravaganza. I'll be adding further ones as and when I produce them for my main blog. You'll find a full index of what's available here.