- When and where do you get healthy plants from?
- Which locations does the winter heath prefer?
- What should be considered when planting the winter heather?
- Can the winter heather be transplanted?
- How is the snow heather propagated?
- When does the snow heath bloom?
- At what distance should the winter heather be planted as ground cover?
In contrast to the common heather (Calluna vulgaris), the snow heather or winter heather (Erica carnea) also grows on non-moorland and rather calcareous soils, and it is also very frost-hardy due to its alpine origin. As the name suggests, the winter heather flowers from February to April, a time when hardly any other outdoor plants flower.
The winter heath: A special attraction for the garden bed
When and where do you get healthy plants from?
The winter heather is usually offered in garden stores in spring in different varieties and flower colors. This may also be due to the fact that spring is absolutely the best time to plant winter heather.
Which locations does the winter heath prefer?
The winter heath loves locations that are as sunny as possible or at most semi-shady. The soil should be rather calcareous and barren soils with a high proportion of gravel or rock are also well tolerated.
What should be considered when planting the winter heather?
The pot balls of the plants are usually very intensively rooted when they are bought. Therefore, take the winter heather out of the pot and carefully loosen the root ball a little before planting it on the spot about 1 cm deeper than before in the soil.
Can the winter heather be transplanted?
If at all, winter heather should only be transplanted in the spring. In principle, the hardy and perennial plants can remain in one location for many years. Older specimens sometimes do not survive transplanting to a new location very well.
How is the snow heather propagated?
Since the cultivation of snow heather from seeds is rather negligible, the following three propagation methods usually come into question:
- by division
- with rooting semi-lignified cuttings
- through the formation of sinkers
For the cultivation of cuttings, pieces of about 25 to 35 mm long are cut off from semi-lignified branches of the winter heather in summer. These are defoliated in the lower, about 10 mm long area and put in potting soil. If the cuttings are kept evenly moist for about 40 days, in most cases the cuttings should have rooted by this time.
When does the snow heath bloom?
The snow heather usually blooms between February and April.
At what distance should the winter heather be planted as ground cover?
The winter heather is not only suitable as winter planting for balcony boxes, but also as an attractive ground cover in the heather garden. For this, the young plants are planted at a distance of about 20 to 30 cm from each other.
tips
To ensure that the winter heather does not become bare in one location even after several years, it should be pruned back vigorously every year after flowering. The pruning is also important for lush flowering in the following year.