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Heuchera's
I wondered if anyone has some good tips for getting the best from their Heuchera's. Mine always look a little bedraggled and tend to grow up leaving a bare stem underneath and become very vulnerable to snapping off. Any advice would be gratefully received because I do love these plants and the range of foliage colours you can get. Just don't feel i'm doing them justice at the moment.
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EASY! Heucheras do have a short life (in my experience 2, maybe 3 years before that happens. I have only ever bought one each of every variety I own (about 10?) and have loads of plants of each variety now. In the Autumn I cut off little plantlets from the outside of the plant, make sure the cut is clean and put them in a mix of approximately half compost, half gritty sand. I just leave them standing around outside in the winter and find that at least 33% have rooted in late spring/early Summer. I just judge them ready to pot up when they've started growing. A year and a half later the plant is very big and will have loads of new 'plantlets' to start all over again. Some varieties obviously work better than others, I have not had much luck with the black ones, but the caramel-type colours are very successful indeed. Hope you don't become as obsessed with propagating them as I am!
what are the cultural conditions? i have friends who grow them with basically no care-benign neglect at its best. mine languish and decline-slowly and miserably-if i love them or hate them they are always the one that got away
Thanks for the advice! I suspect I may well become obsessed ingrid they just have amazing foliage variety and are handy little plants. Pokadotdaisy I have already had problems with vine weevil when they've been in pots but not in the open ground as yet... fingers crossed! I can see a two pronged attack of propagation and replanting deeper!
David, mine grow in abit of shade and I try not to let them dry out and that seems to do them ok, to be honest I sound a little like the friends you mention that pretty much neglect them.
my penstemon's are very tall and caught the frost slightly when can i cut them back??
Where do the vine weevils live when they are not eating my polyanthus and heuchera's? They seem to turn up from no where..
l never cut my penstemons till all the frost has gone then l cut them right back. l live in a very cold area in the west-mids and sometimes lose them, the very hardy ones live.
but l go to garden centre's and buy any they are selling off l usually end up with some lovely plants but l must admit l have very green fingers, l took four cuttings from a old deep red rose in a garden that the house was up for sale three of them survive they have the most beautiful scent, also a yellow one from spare ground it is a lovely plant very tall plant, the originals were disposed of.
Hello rucklidge,
Have a look at our vine weevil advice. As you'll see they spend a lot of time hiding in soil / compost. As you say, they do favour polyanthus and heuchera. In a nursery where I worked we made a point of vigilantly checking the 'h' section at certain times of year. I have recently discovered that Americans call them snout beetles, which is rather sweet.
Emma
gardenersworld.com team
I love heucheras, the advice I was given was to divide them every three years or so as you would with lots of perennials- discarding old woody bits in the middle of the plant- and replanting more vigorous outer parts.