Hidden Hills Garden

Christmas followed by a week’s vacation in Costa Rica has me running behind, so it’s just a quick post this week to pass along some great gardening information. The Mount Cuba Center in Delaware trialed 83 different cultivars of coral bells (Heuchera) and published their findings along with nice pictures of the 10 best. Visitors also voted on their favorites. You can follow this link, if you want to read the whole report.

I have over two dozen different Heuchera in my garden, three of which made the Mount Cuba Center’s top 10 list, so that leaves 7 potential new Heuchera for me to try. The one I’m most excited to add this spring is their #10 pick, which was the visitor’s #1 pick, ‘Spellbound’.

Heuchera ‘Spellbound’

‘Spellbound’ was bred by Terra Nova Nurseries, the same breeding magicians responsible for almost half the plants on this list, including the #9 pick, ‘Southern Comfort’. I’ve grown ‘Southern Comfort’ for years, and posted several pictures on this blog. It’s my favorite Heuchera, and I’m surprised it wasn’t rated higher.

Heuchera ‘Southern Comfort’ growing in my garden.

I also grow this #8 pick, ‘Frosted Violet’. It’s my second favorite Heuchera.

Heuchera ‘Frosted Violet’

I haven’t grown the next 7 yet, and I’m too lazy to contact a bunch of people for pictures, but you can follow the links on the names, or look at pictures on Mt. Cuba’s report (here’s another link).

#7 ‘Apple Crisp’

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#5 ‘Steel City’

#4 ‘Color Dream’

#3 ‘Cajun Fire’

#2 ‘Bronze Wave’ – This one’s going on my “want” list too.

And their #1 pick is ‘Citronelle’, which I grow and find inferior to ‘Southern Comfort’ and ‘Frosted Violet’, but it’s not my list.

Heuchera ‘Citronelle’

A few pieces of advice about growing coral bells:

They need shade to part shade. Up North you can get away with giving them more light, but at the trial garden the Heuchera were grown in 4 hours or less sun, except for bright, yellow-green cultivars like ‘Citronelle’ which were grown in 0 hours.

Heuchera do very well in containers, but if you want to grow them in the ground, their ideal soil type is moist, yet well-drained. Soil that stays damp may cause them to rot. Once established they can adapt to drier soils, but they don’t grow as big. The more vigorous a specific cultivar is, the better it will do under less than perfect conditions, and so even if you don’t have excellent soil, these 10 are worth trying.

I was working on an email to my editor about the plants that I think would be good for Hot Plant articles in Alabama Gardener, when it occurred to me that if I write it as a blog post, I can cross two things off my to-do list. And besides, whether or not these plants are deemed hot enough for the magazine, I think they are all sizzlers that you would want to know about.

It’s been over a year since a grass was a Hot Plant, and Skyracer purple moor grass (Molinia caerulea spp. arundinacea ‘Skyracer’) is my favorite.

Using this see-through grass to separate areas of the garden is the horticultural equivalent to hanging strands of beads in an open doorway, like they did in the sixties. And it’s extremely low maintenance; you don’t even need to cut it back once a year. By early spring it’s tired and broken and lying on the ground. You simply gather it into the wheelbarrow, and toss it on the compost pile.

Other grasses that I like: the 2014 perennial plant of the year, Northwind switchgrass (Panicum vigatum ‘Northwind’), Dewey Blue switchgrass (Panicum amarum ‘Dewey Blue’) and Morning Light maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’).

Northwind switchgrass at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Hot Plant article about a houseplant, but I thought it might be good for the October issue since that is national houseplant month, and the beginning of indoor gardening season. I absolutely love my new climbing onion (Bowiea volubilis). Trace made fun of it when it first arrived; he said it looked like a hairy nipple – I won’t put that in the article.

This is the only picture I have of what the climbing onion looked like when I first got it. It’s in the lower, right corner.

Before I put a trellis behind it, the plant just hung there and didn’t do much, but once I gave it something to climb on, it took off so fast that I can watch it grow taller every day. Mine needs to fill out a little more before I can get a good picture, but you can follow this link to see it.

And if you look back at that last picture, the plant with the striped leaves that’s about to flower is another good one. Black jewel orchid (Ludisia discolor) is easy to grow and blooms for a long time.

Air plants (Tillandsia) might make good Hot Plants. The grower I bought mine from gave me some advice that I’ve never heard before. He said my habit of watering them with water from the rain barrel was good, but that unless I use fresh rain water, I still need to fertilize. You know how water dechlorinates when it sits out overnight? Well he says all the good nutrients off-gas the same way. I’d verify this before writing it in the magazine, but it sounds reasonable.

Walking iris is an old pass-along plant that I’m seeing more and more.

And I love my clivia. It likes crowded roots, so I’ll wait several more years to pot it up a size.

I saw this clivia at the 2011 Nashville Lawn and Garden Show.

There are so many hot perennials, that it’s hard to pick. Dolly Sods bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia ‘Dolly Sods’) is the only bleeding heart I’ve ever not-killed. It bloomed all summer in full sun with nothing but neglect.

I mentioned the new phenomenal lavender (Lavandula x intermedia ’Phenomenal’) in my last post. It would make a good Hot Plant.
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And the new Fire Storm geum that Terra Nova Nurseries gave me to try is more vigorous than any other geum I’ve ever grown, and it reblooms.

Terra Nova Nurseries is also responsible for my favorite coral bells, Heuchera ‘Southern Comfort’.

Our native, evergreen, perennial Stokes’ aster (Stokesia laevis) is cover-girl hot.

And I love my new hardy orchid (Bletilla striata ‘Gotemba Stripes’).

Fifteen years ago, this Bartzella peony sold for $1000 a division, and Wayside Gardens calls it, “…the Holy Grail of serious gardeners…”. If we use it in the magazine, I’ll have to find my picture of the foliage in early spring. It’s as beautiful as the flower.

Although I know that I have the assignment to write a Hot Plant article in every issue of Alabama Gardener, I don’t know which plants we’re using. Hopefully my editor will like some of these ideas, because I need to start working on the March article; the deadline is just two weeks away.

This post is running a little long, so I’ll talk about smoking-hot annuals, shrubs and trees in my next post.