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Heuchera villosa 'Palace Purple'



8th September 2010


When I was young, Heuchera were plants with dull green leaves of little value and then suddenly I awoke from vegetative torpor to discover they had become brightly coloured foliage plants of little value. The catalyst for this horrifying change was Heuchera villosa 'Palace Purple'
It was selected from a batch of seed raised at Kew by Brian Halliwell in 1980. The original source of the seed is not known and the species was a matter of speculation for some years.
It seems that Heuchera are like spawning salmon, they have sex indiscriminately and suddenly there was a profusion of dark leaved hybrids. The more seedlings were raised, the more colour variation arose until we arrive at the modern day, when you can have any foliage colour you are able to stomach. When I say 'you can have..' that is exactly what I mean. You can have them.
I'm not a screaming girl at a boyband concert, I'm not a portable air conditioning unit, in brief, I'm not a fan.

23rd October 2013