shade - ONCE UPON A CONEFLOWER

Sweet Tiarella

Sugar and Spice

Tiarella (Tiarella cordifolia) is a pretty spring-blooming perennial for shady borders, under shrubs and for woodland settings where an attractive groundcover is desired. If you like heuchera, tiarella is like a first cousin, very similar yet with its own charm. Most tiarella cultivars on the market today are nativars; that is, gently improved versions of our native foam flower. As a result they are hardy, undemanding, and valued for both very charming flowers and attractive, well-marked foliage.

Two Petite Goatsbeards to Know

Shade gardens can pose a challenge in that they can be hard to brighten up once the spring ephemerals have passed. One plant that is very useful for this is goatsbeard. A native of damp mountainous woodlands, goatsbeard is found all across the Northern Hemisphere. Its creamy white plumes in late May into early June are a welcome addition along with the astilbes, which they somewhat resemble.

While native goatsbeard can be too big for suburban gardens at five to six feet tall, there are two smaller versions perfect for tight spaces.

Confusing Spring “Blues”

No, I don’t mean bluegrass music or feeling down in the dumps. I’m talking about spring bulbs featuring racemes of blue florets. Many are members of the scilla family which encompasses 80 to 90 species all by itself. They bloom at roughly the same time and look similar, so it can be challenging to keep them straight.

To make matters worse, many species are interchangeably referred to as squill or hyacinth because their Latin nomenclature is twisted and still unresolved. Subfamilies like bluebells can be further divided into English, Spanish or Virginia. Then there’s chionodoxa, Siberian squill, muscari, true hyacinth, and camassia — all blue, all spring blooming.

Do you know which is which? Does it matter?