Erica vagans Birch Glow

The Erica vagans 'Birch Glow' is an excellent variety of heather, vigorous and particularly decorative with its generous deep pink flowering that spreads until November. It is a low and wide undershrub, with a natural appearance, whose dark green foliage remains attractive in winter. Plant it in a large border, in a rockery or in a pot, preferably in the sun, in an acidic and well-drained soil.

The Erica vagans 'Birch Glow' can grow up to 1600 m altitude in France.

The 'Birch Glow' heather forms a small, dense bush with a soft and slightly unkempt cushion-like appearance. Eventually, the plant measures about 30 cm in height and 50 to 60 cm in spread. Its branches are a bit twisted, upright at the ends, well-branched, and covered with tiny linear green leaves (8 to 10 mm), like non-prickly needles. This variety blooms from August to November, two weeks later than most other wandering heathers. Its small bell-shaped flowers measuring 3 mm long are whorled, grouped in small compact, elongated clusters, often terminated by leaves. They are highly visited by bees. They are pink when they open and turn dark pink-purple as the hours pass. The stamens that protrude from the corolla are dark red. The evergreen foliage remains green throughout the year.

The 'Birch Glow' wandering heather is planted in a pocket of acidic soil, between rocks in a rockery, along the edge of a raised bed or a path, always in light, non-calcareous soil. It thrives in the sun, in the company of other heathers with concurrent or staggered flowering: Erica carnea 'Isabell', E. darleyensis 'Kramer's Rot', and Calluna vulgaris 'Winter Chocolate', for example. To add a touch of whimsy to the scene, they can be associated with some low grasses that will lighten their mass. Heathers form beautiful carpets at the base of larger heathland shrubs: mountain laurels, brooms, Chinese azaleas, etc.

While heathers, especially those of the genus Erica, are associated with the humid Atlantic heathlands of the oceanic north facade (Brittany, Ireland, Scotland), some heathers thrive in dry climates and on limestone soils, Mediterranean heathers. But one of the richest areas in heather is located far away, in South Africa. In the Cape region, there is a plant formation on acidic soil equivalent to our Mediterranean scrub vegetation, the Fynbos, which includes nearly 625 heather species out of the 740 listed worldwide.