Hardy heaths for winter colour

Press, 20 August 1982, Page 8

Hardy heaths for winter colour

/GARDENER'S 5 ! *3 DIARY |

Derrick Rooney

i Any fool can have a colI ourful garden in midsummer, says a maxim that rock gardeners are fond of repeat- » ing, but only a wise and ; clever person can have the colour in winter. Like many proverbs, this is only partly true, because while many of the choice plants for the winter garden demand extra skill and attention, there is one group of small shrubs with which any fool gardener can make sheets of colour throughout the coldest months. These are the hardy heaths, European species of •the genus Erica. For the winter rock gardener, the selections of the alpine heath, Erica carnea, being naturally small shrubs, are the first choice. Numerous named forms are available, and all are good. They can, and this week did in my garden, flower through snow. For quality, pride of place goes to the two Springwoods, white and pink, which make sheets of colour and carry on the display from midwinter until spring is so far advanced that they are no longer needed. Both are prostrate, and of very dense and rapid growth. “Springwood White” is the older, and like many of the best heaths and heathers is not a product of the plant breeder’s skill but a wild plant. A sharp-eyed Scottish gardener, Mrs Walker of Springwood, Stirling, picked it out on an Italian hillside in the 19205. F. J. Ghittenden, then director of Wisley Gardens, named it “Springwood,” for Mrs Walker’s garden, when iropagations were sent to Visley for trial, and. under that name it won an Award of Garden Merit in 1930. The “White” was added later, when “Springwood Pink” . came along. After more than half a century, “Springwood White” is still without peer. Throughout the year it is a rock-garden shrub of the highest quality. In summer it is. a mat of emerald green. By late summer the whole plant is covered with limegreen flower-buds. In autumn the buds begin to elongate, and as they do so the colour transmutes to yellow. In midwinter, as the flowers begin to open, the colour j changes again to white — the j dead, pure white of the frost i that settles inside a freezer ] cabinet. i “Springwood Pink” is of ] like habit of growth and it, ; too, switches colours. The ; lime-green buds which form i in late summer turn white as ] winter approaches; and the j warm shell-pink tones which < make this plant unique s among winter-flowering heaths do not appear until | the flowers are almost fully | open. Sometimes a bush ; nearing full flower is a < mosaic of all three colours, |

The same Mrs Walker found this heath at Springwood, in her garden, and though its parentage is unknown, she apparently always supposed it to be a seedling of her white plant. Both Springwoods have longish, narrow flowers. Two other first-class heaths have tubbier bells. They are “Fursey” and “Eileen Porter.” “Fursey,” occasionally called “Cherry Stevens,” has a dash of mauve in its pink and is of upright habit. The foliage is dark green. It, too, was a chance seedling which appeared in the English garden of an Australian farmer. It does not look like “pure” Erica carnea and may be better placed in the Darleyensis hybrid group. Fursey was the four-acre garden made at Minstead, in the New Forest, by Mr Bay Dalrymple, a retired sheepfarmer who settled in Britain after World War I. An article about his garden in the Royal Horticultural Journal in 1955 described a vast range of plants growing there, but his speciality was heaths. His brother, Hugh, owned a nursery at the House in the Wood, Bartley, about three miles from Furzey and he introduced the Elant to cultivation. Hugh •alrymple is also well known to rock garders as the developer of the. Bartley strain of primulas. “Eileen > Porter” has flowers which are quite large by winter-heath standards, and are in two tones of rosy carmine, and a well-grown plant in full flower is a

splendid sight. But it is less robust than the Springwoods, and demands a choice site and plenty of fussing if it is to give its best. It is worth the effort. Where “Eileen Porter” does well it has a longer flowering period than any other winter heath, and its colour is unique. Though its raiser — Mr J. W. Porter, an Irish heath enthusiast and amateur hybridist — is known, its pedigree is not. Mr Porter’s records were lost after his death. He was, however, known to have made numerous crosses between different species of heath, and some growers have speculated that “Eileen Porter” was the fruit of one of those crosses. Be that as it may, Mr Porter evidently thought highly of. his plant, because he named it for his wife. It was introduced to cultivation in the late 19405, but is still not common. Another favourite heath in the carmine pink range is “Vivelli.” This is a bushier grower than “Eileen Porter” and is easier to keep healthy, but it does not begin to flower until late winter.

At all times of the year “Vivelli” is a handsome little bush. It tolerates a range of sites, and is seldom bothered by pests or die-back; if it has a fault this is a reluctance to flower in shade.

The foliage is toned bronze and the flowers are deep rosy carmine. In recent years “Vivelli” has given rise to several “sports” which have been named and introduced. The

best of these is probably “Ann Sparkes,” which has yellow-orange foliage throughout spring and summer. As the colder months approach, the foliage gradually transmutes to old gold, and the leaf margins flush bronze. The flowers are purple. This is not a fast grower, even by heath standards, and my plant, two seasons old from a cutting, still has a spread of less than 10cm.

Typical wild plants of Erica carnea have pale fleshpink flowers, but the one offered in nurseries under the name “Carnea” is warm rosy pink. This plant won an Award of Garden Merit at Wisley in 1924, but its origin was not recorded on the citation. Presumably. some sharp-eyed British nurseryman spotted it on a hillside. The foliage is fresh green, faintly bluish tinged in cold weather, the habit is bushy, and the plant flowers freely, even when it gets little sun. It is what gardeners call “a good doer.”

“Praecox Rubra” is another old favourite — prostrate, and dark green, with plenty of reddish pink flowers. It needs a little shelter from the hottest summer sun. Among the newer heaths I like “Myretoun Ruby,” " whose unopened flower buds are that rich antique-furniture colour called chestnut. The flowers, when they open, are ruby red.

“Loughrigg” is another good one. Initially I failed to get this established in my garden, but a second plant, from a different source, grew away strongly, and has been flowering well this winter. It is dense, bushy and vigorous but not too tall or too fast-growing to be contained in the rock garden, and the flowers are an attractive dark pink, with just a hint of purple. It is a seedling of “Vivelli.”