Heuchera plant, description and photo, varieties, features, growing technology, care

The heuchera plant is used quite often for landscaping a garden plot and when creating a landscape garden.

Its foliage amazes with a variety of shades, combinations and shapes.

To make your garden special and beautiful, let’s get acquainted with some of the features of growing this crop.

Content:

• Heuchera plant, photo and external features
• Varieties of culture
• Where to buy seedlings
• How to grow in open ground - planting
• Care - fertilizers, watering
• Organization of wintering
• Reproduction methods
• The use of heuchera in landscape design, photo

Heuchera bush, photo and external features

Heuchera flower belongs to the genus Saxifraga. This crop is perennial, herbaceous and rhizomatous. It is thanks to these indicators that this plant is mainly used for landscaping.

The flower received its name in honor of a German doctor and botanist whose name was Johann Heinrich von Heicher. The plant's homeland is North America; its rocky areas are the favorite habitat of heuchera.

External indicators and characteristics:

• The bush is compact, half a meter high.
• The leaves have a leathery surface with denticles. They are formed on long cuttings and have a variety of colors and shapes.The most common colors are bright red, pink, maroon, black, purple, silver, green, amber and yellow. At the same time, there are patterns in the form of spots, specks and veins. The leaves are corrugated to the touch; they can be smooth or curly.
• Throughout the growing season, Heuchera is capable of changing the color of its leaves several times. There is no other plant in nature that has such amazing abilities.
• Blooms throughout the summer season and until the first frost. Inflorescences are white, coral, pink, red and cream. The bud shape is bell-shaped, the flowers are neatly collected in a panicle.

Plants have capsule-shaped fruits. They contain seeds inside that are similar in appearance to poppy seeds.

Although the birthplace of the flower is North America, it is well suited for cultivation in European countries, the main thing is to create optimal conditions for its development.

Varieties of culture

More than seventy species of heuchera are observed in nature. Varieties are divided into two types: mountain and forest.

Now let's look at the types that are most often used landscape designers, and breeders use them to develop new varieties

In fact, you can find many more varieties, the care and cultivation principles are the same for all species, the main differences are the color of the foliage and buds.

Where to buy seedlings

You can buy heuchera seedlings at any gardening store in your city. If the store has a small assortment or only seed material, you can purchase a quality product in the online store. The main thing is that the store has a certificate, this guarantees that you will receive healthy products. The parcel is sent by mail.

Before purchasing, you need to ask a consultant about the type and quality of the plant. The catalog usually presents photos of various varieties, describes their characteristics and indicates the price.

For its part, a specialized company guarantees fast delivery, healthy and strong seedlings, and reliable packaging before shipping.

How to grow in open ground - planting

Growing is a simple process; even a beginner can cope with this task.

There are small nuances that should be taken into account:

• Transplantation into open ground is performed at the end of March or at the beginning of April.
• Plants love shade, so when selecting a site, you need to plant the crop next to some other vegetation that will shade the flower. This creates diffused sunlight.
• The site should be on the eastern or western side of the garden, then the sun will penetrate to the flower either in the morning or in the evening.
• If there is no shade in the garden and the heuchera is in the open sun, the flower needs to be watered generously and done regularly.

The bush can be grown from seeds, although many people prefer to buy seedlings. When planting seed, loose soil is required; the seeds are completely covered with soil. When grown from seeds, maternal characteristics are lost, so the plant loses its varietal characteristics and usually simple bushes with ordinary green leaves grow from seeds.

When growing from seeds, it is recommended to grow seedlings first. It is better to do this in a small box, which is covered with film and creates the effect of a mini-greenhouse. When the seedlings grow and become stronger, they are planted in open ground, but it is important to maintain a distance between the bushes, a minimum of 20 cm.

It is permissible to deepen plants into the soil only 3-4 cm. The soil must be fluffy so that it is saturated with oxygen, and it freely penetrates to the roots.

We invite you to watch an interesting video about the Geyser plant and the features of caring for it:

Care - fertilizers, watering

Young seedlings require virtually no care.During the first year of life, there is no need to feed young plants, and starting from the next year of growing season, it is necessary to apply universal fertilizers intended for flowering bushes if a flowering type of heuchera is grown. And if a decorative deciduous type of flower grows on the site, then it needs fertilizing intended for deciduous bushes.

Regular watering is required. It is important for heuchera to be watered once every two days, as soon as the soil on top dries out. This plant is drought-resistant, that is, it can easily tolerate drying out of the soil, but stagnation of water in the root area can lead to detrimental consequences.

But if the weather is dry and hot for a long time, then you will need to water the bushes twice every day, watering in the morning, before the sun has risen, and in the evening, when it has already set.

The procedure is carried out carefully, water is poured onto the root system.

In the spring, after moistening the soil, peat 1-2 cm thick is poured on top, thanks to this, in spring and summer you will need to loosen and weed the area less often.

Organization of wintering

Heuchera is considered a frost-resistant crop, so it overwinters well in an open area.

However, it doesn’t hurt to perform some manipulations that will make the winter easier. You should not prune dry and yellow leaves at the end of autumn, since they are the protection during the cold season.

To be on the safe side, the root space is covered with fallen leaves; with the onset of spring, the insulating layer is removed.

In spring, excess foliage is also cut off so that the plant can produce new fresh leaf blades and devote its energy to their growth and color.

Reproduction methods

Heuchera is propagated in the following ways:

• dividing the bush;
• growing from seeds.

Let's consider each option in more detail.

• The option of dividing the bush is carried out as follows:
• It is necessary to dig up the heuchera and divide the bush into a couple of parts. Bare and shorten the stem. Dry side shoots are cut off to live brood buds; they are usually located in the axils of dried old leaf blades.
• If the root system is long, you need to use garden shears to shorten and cut off all parts that have defects, such as disease or rot.
• It is important to treat cut areas with crushed coal for disinfection.

To plant a new plant, you need to dig a hole measuring 30 by 30 centimeters. Add compost, wood ash and mineral fertilizers to the soil.

Sprinkle the seedling with soil, shade it from the sun's rays and water it generously.

If everything is done correctly, then after 45 days the first roots will appear. The seedlings are ready to be transplanted to another site.

The second option, propagation of the plant by seed, is carried out as follows:

• Fresh seeds are collected from the fruits, that is, the capsules. They remain viable for six months, and then lose all their properties. If you did not collect the seeds yourself, but buy ready-made packaging, be sure to pay attention to the expiration date and collection date. The only option to preserve seeds longer is to pack them in foil packaging. In this case, the seeds are stored for one and a half years.
• To sow seeds, you need to take a wide box or any plastic container and make drainage holes in it. The height of the container is at least five centimeters.
• Loose soil is used, since in this case the soil is saturated with oxygen.Perlite or sand is used as filler.
• Before planting seeds, the soil is heated in a microwave or oven for five to seven minutes. As a last resort, you can pour boiling water over the soil and wait until it dries completely.
• The seed is sown at the end of March or beginning of April, it all depends on weather conditions and lighting.
• Since the seeds are quite small, you can mix them with sand, then you will be able to get uniform germination.
• The seeds should not be deepened too much. After sowing, the soil is lightly watered, fluffed up and leveled.
• The container is covered with film or glass until the first shoots appear.
• Place the container on the windowsill on the sunny side; it is important to avoid drafts.

Under optimal conditions, sprouts will appear in 14, maximum 21 days. To speed up growth, periodically open the bag or glass for ventilation. Some professionals recommend not opening the glass completely after the first shoots, but only making a small hole.

After the formation of three leaves on the stem, picking is carried out. A distance of four to six centimeters is maintained between plants.

Throughout the growing period, it is recommended to regularly moisten the soil. But do this carefully, since drying out and waterlogging poses a danger to the seeds and contributes to their death.

In the month of May, the container with seedlings is taken out to the garden plot. This procedure allows the shoots to grow stronger.

Which propagation method to use is chosen by each gardener personally, but it is worth remembering that when planting seeds, the resulting plants are not 100% similar to those from which the seeds were collected, because They do not retain maternal DNA.The external, decorative characteristics of such plants may be lower.

Let's watch a useful video about propagation and transplantation of Heuchera:

Heucheras in landscape design, photo

Heuchera is often used for landscape design; it decorates areas due to its appearance and multifaceted color palette.

The great advantage of this crop is that the leaves make the garden attractive from the first days of March until the first frosts appear. And if the flower is correctly combined with other plants, you will get an incredibly original composition.

For the design of plots, Heuchera is used both in mixed, group planting, and in single-species planting.

The older a flower becomes, the more beautiful its shape it takes on, so these flowers are used to decorate flower beds and borders, creating a certain pattern or geometric figure.

Some people plant plants in decorative pots, which are then installed on terraces, patios or gazebos. Heuchera looks great against the background of stone walls, creating a special, cozy atmosphere.

Many gardeners combine heuchera with dwarf shrubs or garden plants, such as daylily, brunen, astilbe, ornamental grasses, chrysanthemum, irises, primrose, fern, geranium and sedum.

So, Heuchera is a very beautiful ornamental plant that does not require the gardener to have special agrotechnical skills or many years of experience in caring for plants. The main thing is to purchase healthy seedlings and properly care for them.