Calluna vulgaris

Heather (Calluna vulgaris) offers year-round interest, with masses of summer flowers and evergreen foliage. It's a familiar sight in the wild on moorlands and lowland heaths, growing in such profusion that the land appears to turn purple in the late summer months and filling the air with a honey-like scent from the nectar-rich blooms which are a valuable food source for bees.

Many varieties of heather have been bred for the garden with flowers in a range of colours that include reds, pinks, purples and white, and some with foliage coloured orange or yellow. There are also varieties known as ‘bud bloomers’ that offer a particularly long season of interest as the flower buds never open fully but remain colourful for many weeks. This versatile, very hardy little shrub forms low, bushy or spreading mounds of slender stems clothed with narrow, evergreen leaves which are smothered with masses of tiny, bell-shaped flowers in summer or autumn.

Calluna vulgaris is easy to grow and long lived providing it is planted in acid (lime free) soil, or in peat-free ericaceous compost if grown in pots or raised beds. Heathers look best planted in groups or drifts and suit a range of sites including border edges, banks, rockeries, raised beds, and pots. They make good, weed-smothering, non-invasive ground cover. Keep plants neat and encourage bushy growth by shearing off the stems that have produced flowers, in early spring.