Tiarellas and Heucherellas: 4 successful pairing ideas!

In borders

In summer, invite white into your borders with Tiarelle ‘Spring Symphony’, cordifolia, or ‘Tiger Strip’, which will bring multiple small spikes, along with saxifrage umbrosa ‘Variegata’, producing fluffy inflorescences. Add touches of geranium phaeum ‘Album’ and Brunnera macrophylla ‘Betty Bowring’ to complete this plant tapestry, all contrasted by the green foliage of hosta ‘Jurassic Park’ (in the background as its foliage can reach over a metre in height). This border of evergreen perennials will last for several years!

Here’s an alternative for spring by pairing heucherellas or tiarelles with spring bulbs like tulips or daffodils. Feel free to add seasonal beauties like pansies, bellis, aquilegias, or myosotis, which, depending on the chosen varieties, will bring touches of colour along the paths and walkways.

If you like this style of planting, check out our page Dressing a Path or the page White and Silver Garden.

Monochrome planting with Brunnera macrophylla ‘Betty Bowring’, Geranium phaeum ‘Album’, Hosta ‘Jurassic Park’, Saxifraga umbrosa ‘Variegata’, and Tiarella cordifolia

In a shady garden

Dare to be original with highly dissected and colourful foliage in warm shades that will brighten up a shaded garden or woodland garden. Discover and mix heucheras and Heucherellas with the heuchera ‘Georgia Plum’ featuring purple and pink foliage, ‘Blackout’ with black foliage, ‘Red Lightning’ with golden foliage, and the Heucherella ‘Onyx’ with black foliage, along with ‘Honey Rose’ featuring pink veined with purple foliage to create a mosaic of foliage.

In a different style, draw inspiration from ferns with their long graphic fronds to accompany Tiarellas and Heucherellas, true stalwarts for light shade! Try l’Asplenium scolopendrium, Polystichums, Dryopteris filix-mas or Erythrosora. The result will be guaranteed! With this well-thought-out mix, you will bring lightness to your shade garden.

Mix the heuchera ‘Georgia Plum’ with purple and pink foliage, ‘Blackout’ with black foliage, ‘Red Lightning’ with golden foliage, and the heucherella ‘Onyx’ with black foliage, along with ‘Honey Rose’ featuring pink veined with purple foliage to create a mosaic of astonishing foliage.

On a shaded terrace

Alone or in combination, Tiarellas or Heucherellas will create a stunning effect for greening a balcony or terrace! As excellent shade plants, you will always find a spot to grow them in pots, containers, or window boxes, showcasing them in delicate and colourful arrangements. In spring, you can plant them in pots with violet ‘Blue Shades’ or white ‘White Splendour’ anemones, violas cornuta in a myriad of shades, or daisies (Bellis perennis). Place the tiarellas or heucherellas in the centre or at the back of the arrangements, with all the other plants in the foreground or around them to play with heights.

In summer, combine yellow and white in a pot or container by pairing Iberis ‘Snowflake’, Erysimums like ‘Rysi Copper’, and ‘Heritage White’’ stock to create cascades, along with primroses to vary the heights, and Lobularias to highlight tiarellas ‘Appalachian Trail’ or Heucherellas ‘Stoplight’.

Also consider ivy with its stunning foliage that tends to cascade down. And why not pair them with other decorative foliage to create a stunning hanging display: heuchera ‘Cascade Dawn’ and Heucherella ‘Redstone Falls’. You will impress your guests!

Create a yellow and white combination with the yellow-veined purple foliage of Heucherella ‘Stoplight’, the white flowering of Iberis ‘Snowflake’ and ‘Heritage White’ stock, some yellow touches with Erysimum ‘Rysi Copper’, and finally, the airy white spikes of Tiarella ‘Appalachian Trail’

To dress the base of trees and shrubs

Add different shades of green with the foliage of hostas that thrive in shade, such as the variety ‘Frances Williams’, grasses like carex that will add lightness, and Brunneras macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’, which are subtle in their flowering but striking with their silver-veined green leaves. Both tiarellas and Heucherellas will find a prime spot among these beautiful shade plants, spreading their ground-covering form.

For gardeners who are drawn to pink, harmonise the plants to create a tableau in shades of pink by combining heucherellas ‘Kimono’, ‘Eye Spy’ or ‘Berry Fizz’ with tiarellas ‘Morning Star’ alongside hardy geraniums like ‘Sirak’ or sanguineum ‘Elke’, and digitalis mertonensis ‘Summer King’.

Also consider Ajuga reptans ‘Multicolor’ which can serve as ground cover around a tree trunk, with Tiarellas ‘Sugar and Spice’ or others in the centre.

For spring, create a white and red carpet with Tiarella ‘Snow Blanket’, Erysimum ‘Winter Orchid’, Belarina primrose ‘Valentine’ and ‘Cream’, pulmonarias, and bellflowers in red and white varieties.

For gardeners cultivating a romantic and bucolic garden, create a pastel carpet with soft blooms using forget-me-nots, Erysimums Poem ‘Lavender’, Violas wittrockiana, Violas cornuta, tulips ‘Ballade’, euphorbias, daisies, ivy, and tiarellas. Pink should be dominant, and each plant should find its place.

For more ideas, feel free to check out our Inspiration page – Romantic Atmosphere.

Work on this tableau of shades of pink to cultivate at the foot of a tree with the bush rose ‘Anne Roumanoff’, digitalis mertonensis ‘Summer King’, heucherella ‘Eye Spy’, tiarellas ‘Morning Star’, and hardy geraniums ‘Sirak’

To go further

• Browse our article to find out how to choose a tiarella or a heucherella?