I do pride myself on being a good gardener on the whole I get success but heathers have always been an exception, even though I have always used errecacous compost. I planted six last year and one survives and its hardly grow at all. They are not in boggy ground.
My wife loves the plants and we have an ideal location to plant a group of five or six plants.
I live in St Albans which has a London type soil its a clay loam with plenty of stones.
I want to try again but I am bewildered by the varieties.

My criteria a

Must be soil tolerant (I will use erracacous compost, but I dont want it to die later on)

Must be fast growing - I am too old for anything else

Must form large bushes, wider the better, hopefully about 12 to 15 inches high.
Colour is not so critical purple would be fine, but maybe a variety of colours.


Given these criteria, I have three questions please

1] What varieties?

2] Where to get proper (not measly) specimins via the net

3] If there are any planting tips appart from using correct compost and free draining then i would be grateful to know


If you know the answer to any of htese questions I would love to hear from you

First walk the streets around and make sure you do occasionally see some heather in neighbours gardens.

I live not far from you on a similar soil and grow heathers no problem. But my soil has a sandy loam topsoil over the clay with stones, and so might be better drained than yours. Despite their reputation for growing around peat bogs, heathers do actually demand a well-drained soil. What can happen is that if you have a poorly drained soil, dig a hole in it, fill it with a suitable planting mix, is that these planting holes can become underground puddles. In such conditions, the trick to growing heathers might be to grow them in raised beds. (Btw, include some sharp sand with the ericaceous compost in your planting mix. Sand is acid.)

The other mistake you might be making is to be buying non-hardy heathers. The prettiest looking heathers for sale are often South African heathers. These don't normally survive the winter outdoors in a Hertfordshire garden. The trick is to make sure you are buying a variety of a native heather, or one of certain known hardy imports.

The two really common native species of heather are Calluna vulgaris and Erica cinerea. There are lots of varieties for the garden. If you buy varieties of these, they should do well (subject to the soil conditions issues and drainage issue above). Some are more insistent of very acid conditions than others. There's a common white flowered one (I forget which species) which is particularly tolerant of not-very-acid conditions. It even grows in chalky conditions.

Erica ciliaris is another native. You should alos be able to grow Erica lusitanica, Erica arborea, Erica carnea.

In message , echinosum
writes

ZeroZero;917287 Wrote:
I do pride myself on being a good gardener on the whole I get success
but heathers have always been an exception, even though I have always
used errecacous compost.
First walk the streets around and make sure you do occasionally see some
heather in neighbours gardens.

I live not far from you on a similar soil and grow heathers no problem.
But my soil has a sandy loam topsoil over the clay with stones, and so
might be better drained than yours. Despite their reputation for growing
around peat bogs, heathers do actually demand a well-drained soil. What
can happen is that if you have a poorly drained soil, dig a hole in it,
fill it with a suitable planting mix, is that these planting holes can
become underground puddles. In such conditions, the trick to growing
heathers might be to grow them in raised beds. (Btw, include some sharp
sand with the ericaceous compost in your planting mix. Sand is acid.)

The other mistake you might be making is to be buying non-hardy
heathers. The prettiest looking heathers for sale are often South
African heathers. These don't normally survive the winter outdoors in a
Hertfordshire garden. The trick is to make sure you are buying a
variety of a native heather, or one of certain known hardy imports.

The hardy spring-flowering heathers are Erica carrnea, Erica erigena and
Erica x darleyensis.

The two really common native species of heather are Calluna vulgaris and
Erica cinerea. There are lots of varieties for the garden. If you buy
varieties of these, they should do well (subject to the soil conditions
issues and drainage issue above). Some are more insistent of very acid
conditions than others. There's a common white flowered one (I forget
which species) which is particularly tolerant of not-very-acid
conditions. It even grows in chalky conditions.

Among the natives you've overlooked Erica tetralix, which is quite
common, at least in Scotland. Daboecia is also considered a heath.

Supposedly it's Erica arborea which is lime-tolerant, but I wasn't able
to persuade it to grow in my garden. (I had Callunas and Dabeocias in my
rockery, but the problem there was it was too dry.)

Erica ciliaris is another native. You should alos be able to grow Erica
lusitanica, Erica arborea, Erica carnea.

--
Stewart Robert Hinsley