Erica carnea Pink Spangles

Erica carnea Pink Spangles is a variety of Winter Heath that has been awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. It is distinguished by large bicoloured flowers that range from seashell pink to soft pink, then darken to mauve. Its low, spreading, bright medium green foliage, characterises a vigorous and prostrate variety that covers itself with lime green buds before blooming into light pink flowers. This long-flowering heather tolerates limestone soils, pollution, and sea spray. It thrives in full sun or partial shade in well-drained soil.

'Pink Spangles' Erica carnea belongs to the heather family. It is one of the many descendants of Erica carnea native to the limestone Alps. The plant forms an undershrub with a prostrate and spreading habit, reaching 15 cm in height and 30 to 45 cm in width. Its growth is relatively slow, with a lifespan of about fifteen years. In winter and until spring, from January-February to May, it produces delicate, small, light pink urn-shaped flowers. The bells are arranged in clusters that are 5 to 10 cm long at the tips of the leafy stems. The flowering is nectar-rich, providing a valuable source of pollen and nectar for bumblebees, hoverflies, and other bees in early spring. The evergreen foliage consists of very narrow, erect, medium-green leaves.

The alpine heather 'Pink Spangles' thrives at the base of deciduous or evergreen shrubs that provide light shade. It makes a good ground cover in rock gardens or on slopes. Plant it en masse in a heather garden for a mosaic of colours. Use it in pots alongside taller plants. In borders, plant it alongside Hellebores, small sedges like Carex comans 'Frosted Curls', or at the base of Cornus sanguinea.

While heathers, particularly the Erica genus, are often associated with the damp Atlantic heathlands of Brittany, Ireland, or Scotland, there are also heathers that thrive in dry climates and on limestone soils, such as those found in Mediterranean regions. However, one of the richest areas in the world for heathers is located far away in South Africa. In the Cape region, there is a plant formation on acidic soil, similar to our Mediterranean scrub vegetation, called Fynbos, which is home to nearly 625 heather species out of the 740 that exist worldwide.