Practical Gardening
POOR old January, not many of us grieve its passing each year. Not in the Northern hemisphere at least. It can be hard to love. Also hard to love, for me at least, are the winter flowering heathers. I feel guilty about both as it is neither Januarys or the heathers fault I find them hard to take. I feel particularly guilty when it comes to the heathers. They are very easy to grow and ask for very little, long flowering from November to March, make excellent groundcover and are an all round valuable garden plant.
I find that even on the brightest winters day they are a little boring and their colours somewhat dull and lifeless. Despite this I do grow some in my garden where they are used sparingly as single plants or in groups of three, using them as punctuations in the borders. These are positioned so they can be seen from the house because I’m not sure they would inspire me to don the wellies and make the trek out to them if they were hidden, which I would do for a Sarcococca or Iris unguicularis say.
But to be honest I do enjoy seeing these heathers in isolation but this is exclusively because they are winter flowering I wouldn’t give them summer space. Summer flowering heathers in my opinion should be left to their undoubted magnificence on mountain sides and bogs. That is unless your garden is on a mountain side or bog of course. Many of the summer flowering heathers are natives to Ireland and include Erica cinerea, Erica tetralix, Calluna vulgaris and Daboecia cantabrica. All of these summer heathers are acid loving [ low ph soil conditions] unlike the winter flowerers which are lime tolerant [higher ph soil conditions] which is another plus for the winter heathers in being versatile.
There are two main species of winter flowering heathers both Ericas and both with many cultivars [named varieties]. Erica carnea is a native of the European Alps and it tends to be low 15 to 25 centimetres and mat formimg. Erica x darleyensis is a hybrid between E. carnea and E. erigena which naturally occured in a nursery in Derbyshire England. These are also mat forming but tend to be slightly higher ranging from 30