Heucheras (coral bells) and kin

Our trees and shrubs have grown considerably and consequently we have lots of shade now. Our once barren yard is mostly shaded and many of the struggling, wan, sun loving plants need to be replaced. Luckily we found the wholesale nursery which has a good selection of shade loving plants. We bought many Brunnera, Dicentra, Ligularia, Tricyrtis, and now Huecheras. The picture above shows our recent haul. I hadn't looked at Huecheras for many years and didn't realize they had so many great varieties now with many different leaf colors.

It will be a busy weekend of planting but I hope we get some rain from Hanna. We haven't had a real rain for about 2 months - the earth is parched and bone dry.




H. 'Georgia Peach'





Heucherella 'Alabama Sunrise'






H. x villosa, 'Encore'






H. 'Crimson Curls'





H. 'Tiramisu'






H. 'Christa'






H. 'Ginger Ale'






H. 'Caramel'






H. 'Citronelle'






Tiarella, Allegheny Foam Flower, 'Wherryi'

Tiarella are related to Huechera. The look-a-like's are both in the Saxifrage family but the Tiarella blooms in spring and Huechera in summmer.

Interestingly Huechera and Tiarella are crossed, producing the hybrid Heucherella. The 'Alabama Sunrise' in the third photo from the top is an example of this cross breeding. It will be interesting to see whether it blooms in spring or summer.

Here's an interesting University of Arkansas website with lots of information about Huecherella and a great explanation of the x in hybrid notation. Here's an excerpt:

"The "x" is a universal symbol used to denote a plant hybrid. The placement of the symbol is important. If it’s placed between the two names of a plant, that tells us that the hybrid is a cross between two species within a genus, as was the case of Dragonwing begonia we discussed last week. These are called interspecific hybrids."

"But when the "x" comes before the plant name, that tells us we are dealing with an intergeneric hybrid - a cross between two different plant genera. Because the symbol seems to dangle in the stream of a sentence, non-plant people involved in editing copy do all sorts of things with the pesky "x", most often omitting it all together."

Now you know - I didn't.