What you see are 3 established "Sugar and Spice" foam flowers.
Each year at this time I post similar pictures but I am hoping this will encourage fellow
"Dave" members to find space for such a plant. There is nothing to not like about this perennial i.e. blooms for an extended period in the spring in shade; it is pest free and hardy and many have desirable foliage all season.
Wow, that's a beautiful stand of tiarella!
Very nice Rouge!! I have a bunch of Tiarella myself: Tiarella Cordifolia 'Susquehanna'. The pics below are from a couple weeks ago.
Very nice also 'Sequoi'. I hadnt realized until someone pointed it out to me that there are Tiarella that do run a bit ie "Cordifolia". And so last year I planted a couple in a less tame area of the garden.
Yeah mine run around but in a good way. I like them as an under planting to taller shrubs and perennials. They're great for weed control too. I will say though that they put on a dead stop when they hit the Sweet Woodruff. It's a grudge match with it ending in a draw from what I can tell :)
Lovely indeed. Mine struggled in sunny Lake County but here it would almost certainly be as happy as my heuchera, and that's pretty darned happy.
I had a cultivar called "Lacquer Leaf" that was sold by Shady Oaks Nursery. Gorgeous shiny leaves. Not only did they go wholesale only, but they stopped offering it!
Anyone wanting some Sweet Woodruff? I would be happy to trade for a tiarella or two. I have Sweet Woodruff in my mostly shady gardens. I planted them last year and they are doing quite well. I haven't needed them to be pulled out, but possibly by fall, I will.
Thanks but I have plenty myself :)
I love the photos of one of my favorite plants. Thanks for sharing them. This photo is a hybrid seedling - most of mine are seedlings now that have popped up. I love them in combo with ferns.
Nice combo of foliage :)
That picture convinced me! I went out and bought 3 Suger and Spice Tiarella for my garden. Even the leaves are interesting and pretty. Can't wait until they bloom.
Sugar and Spice is a great plant. In my part shade-part sun PNW garden, it blooms from late March to mid-September. It looks wonderful with both purple and lime foliage plants. New owners should know that it turns a beautiful bronzy pink color in the fall/winter if it gets a little sun (it will revert to it's bright green color the following spring). The second picture is not a good image, but shows the winter color pretty well. The first year I had it, it started changing color and I quickly moved the plant to a shadier location, thinking that I was killing it, but that is just it's natural habit (and the color is really pretty, if you don't associate it with impending demise!).
Y'all have convinced me. I will put a swath under my Japanese Snowbell tree. Thanks!
Yay, a tiarella convert :) I like that first photo Fern, lots of different textures, very beautiful.
Thank you, Sequoiadendron. I'm having a lot of fun playing in the dirt out here. The weather is much gentler on my creaky back than it was in Philadelphia or DC, where I've lived in the past.
Sugar and Spice is a great plant. In my part shade-part sun PNW garden, it blooms from late March to mid-September.
I cut (or pull) off spent blooms periodically (not obsessively), and that probably helps to increase the number of new flower stalks. But, the plant puts up new flowers whether I deadhead or not. I suspect our cool summer temperatures probably help a lot.
Yeah, I don't get any reblooms with my Tiarella Cordifolia 'Susquehanna'
I have quite a swath of tiarella and even a couple of heucherellas. Although tiarellas are reputed to need good soil, mine is flourishing in the shade. It's a pretty good ground cover. As for sweet woodruff, it may be a garden thug but it has somehow been cowed in my garden and has almost disappeared!
I have lots of tiarella around my place. My observations are that if a rabbit gets a liking for it, said thug will eat all the blooms off. This was a problem for me a couple years ago. By the time I noticed the damage, the varmint was an addict, and sprays only moved him/her over to eating heuchera blooms! I trapped and deported that rabbit later in the summer. Now I spray a little discouragement earlier in the year. "Rabbit and Groundhog Out" works well and I don't find it nearly as unpleasant to the human nose as some other very rotten-smelling things. And blood meal of course is great.
I think that rabbit was unusual, though.
I've also noticed that most tiarellas like a fairly bright sort of shade. In fact, any plant that has the reputation of blooming densely (as per catalog photos), and isn't doing so in my garden, usually gets moved to someplace slightly brighter if I really want more flowers. It seems to me that tiarellas can take up to 3 hours of sun in my relatively cool, lake-side, northern garden and do really, really well; whereas truly full shade (as in not even dappled, like in the shade of a house) makes for pretty scattered blooms.
I'm completely a fan of tiarellas. They're such a low-fuss, low-maintenance plant.
'joanic', I think you are right about that rabbit of yours being unusual as for the past few years our garden seems to reside in what bunnies must consider a giant salad bowl and never have I noticed and issue with this stand of tiarellas.
Rabbits are very rude and hungry in our yard too and never have I noticed a nibble out of a tiarella. They sure do eat everything else though..
