Heuchera villosa var macrorrhiza

The Heuchera villosa var macrorrhiza is an interesting botanical heuchera for its vigor and robustness, qualities favored by hybridisers who use it as a parent for many horticultural varieties. These two major assets should open wide the doors of our gardens, even for beginners in gardening. Its large velvety maple-like leaves, evergreen in winter, of a soft green-yellow color, are adorned in late summer with a generous flowering of milky white spikes. It is a shade or semi-shade perennial that is easy to grow in ordinary garden soil, well loosened and drained, even calcareous and quite dry in summer.

Heuchera villosa var. macrorrhiza belongs to the saxifrage family. It is a perennial herbaceous plant with evergreen leaves native to the eastern United States. This macrorrhiza form is mainly found west of the Appalachians, on rocky outcrops of limestone cliffs and rocks.

The plant will reach an average height of 40 cm (16in) (for foliage) and 60 cm (24in) in width in 3-4 years. This Heuchera forms a beautiful spreading cushion tuft. Its evergreen foliage is the first advantage of this plant: its leaves are large, up to 15 cm (6in) long, rounded, with a hairy lamina cut into 5 to 7 dentate triangular lobes along the edge. Their colour is a tender green with a hint of yellow. The flowering of this variety is late, occurring from August to October. Full of charm, it takes the form of numerous erect stems of 50-60 cm (20-24in) in height emerging well above the foliage tuft. Each long hairy floral scape is topped with a panicle filled with numerous small cream-white bell-shaped flowers. While it tolerates shade, the flowering of this plant will be more generous in the morning sun.

Heuchera villosa var. macrorrhiza constitutes a discreet but undeniable ground cover for semi-shaded areas of the garden. Its foliage remains decorative throughout the year and its flowering brings a lot of lightness to any decor. For example, combine it with the blue blooms of forget-me-nots, Omphalodes verna, brunneras, ajugas, columbines, bellflowers, or Japanese grasses (Hakonechloa), always far from the heat of the sun. Its marriage with daylilies allows you to play with the contrast of textures, which extends well beyond the flowering period. Planted en masse, it will form an absolutely charming border along an east-facing alley. In a cool and shaded rock garden, it will accompany tiarellas and heucherellas and asarums, for example.