Breeder News

Copper shades of heuchera and silver from Dusty Miller make quite a partnership. (James Winter/TNS) By Norman Winter Tribune News Service (TNS) This winter we are seeing copper in baskets, containers and even landscapes all thanks to new Heuchera varieties. There seems to be nothing that today’s flower breeder can’t do with Heuchera or its common name coral bells. You have to admit there is something about winter copper. Copper is a color we most often associate with fall and the changing of the leaves. But when using it in cool-season baskets and containers you can let your artistic imagination run wild. The obvious is a fancy foliage pal with blue pansies for a complementary color scheme gone wild. In actuality, pansies and Heuchera of all colors look like they were meant-to-be married together. Copper-colored Heucheras like Southern Comfort and the new Primo Peachberry Ice will excel with the dark-colored Redbor kale and Swiss chard. To be bold, for cool-season try combining with Lemon Coral sedum or Goldilocks lysimachia both offering a wonderful partnership of lime. My Color Guru son, James, pushed my comfort zone to the max this year with several baskets and containers at the exclusive shopping complex known as The Landings in Columbus, Ga. Here he combined copper with silver and my first thought was NO. We see it every day in pocket change but cool-season foliage? Holy Smokes and Shazam, I can’t take my eyes off them. The silver comes from what you may have already guessed, the much underappreciated, Dusty Miller. Oh my, they seem to bring out the best in each other. Kind of like my bride Jan and myself, who will always be polar opposites. There are other partners in the baskets like Rockin Red dianthus and various pansies. Your eyes, however, will be glued to the copper and silver combo and probably thinking you can’t do that. But you’ll look back and think by George you can. All Heuchera species are native to the United States and most often judged by hot summer survivability but there is an incredible romance happening […]

Source: garden.rep-am.com