Coral Bells Heuchera Sugar Plum

Sugar Plum sits in the purple and silver camp of the coral bells rather than the lime or caramel one. The ruffled leaves are plum purple under a silvered overlay with darker veining, so the surface catches light and reads as a pattern rather than a flat block of colour, and the plant builds into a low evergreen mound. Fine wiry stems of small bells rise above it as a haze. It is a plant for shaded borders, pots and the ground under deciduous trees.

Too much shade dulls it to green

Sugar Plum performs across the temperate south and in cooler elevated gardens, and needs a carefully chosen position in humid coastal heat. Give it part shade, moderate water, and free draining soil improved with compost, with the crown sitting above the surface rather than buried. The failure mode is the opposite of what people expect from a shade plant: put it in deep shade and the silver overlay fades, the purple dulls to a tired green, and the mound opens up and stretches as the leaf stalks reach for light. Gardeners who bought it for the metallic sheen end up with something that looks like a plain green perennial. It needs bright shade, not dark shade. Morning sun with protection from hot afternoon light gives the strongest markings, and an open canopy overhead or the south side of a wall with plenty of sky above it both work well. Full western sun goes too far the other way and crisps the leaf edges. Space plants about 300mm apart.

Silver and plum, or matte black

The nearest comparison is Black Forest Cake, and it comes down to how close you stand. Black Forest Cake is a solid matte near black that reads as mass from across a garden; Sugar Plum shows its veining and silver only at short range, which makes it a plant for a pot by a door, a courtyard bed or the edge of a path rather than the far end of a border. For a warm palette instead of a cool one, Marmalade is the pick, and it is also the tougher plant in humid heat. Gardeners who want winter flowers rather than year round foliage in the same shaded bed should look at Helleborus Mollys White, which fills the months when a heuchera is only holding its leaves.

Keeping the mound tight

No formal pruning is needed. Strip old and marked leaves off at the base through the year so light and air reach the centre of the mound, and cut the flower stems out once the bells have finished. Feed in early spring with a slow release complete fertiliser at a light rate and repeat in autumn; overfeeding produces large, soft leaves on long stalks and the silver marking washes out of them. Lift and divide every couple of years in late winter, cutting the woody neck off and replanting the rosettes deeper than they sat before. Keep mulch away from the crown through humid weather, and clear fallen leaves off the centre of the plant after storms.

Choosing a size

This plant is supplied in one size, 140mm, at $16.95 per plant. The size shown is the pot it arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to when to plant in Australia.