Oct 22, 2026 · 25 min · 14 segments
Think you know heathers? Think again. In this episode of the Scotland Grows Show, we dive into the rugged magic of winter-flowering heathers with Wendy Scott, the grower behind…
MT O'DonnellHostWendy ScottGuest
But I would say that heathers had a very particular place in our gardens, maybe historically, even a couple of decades ago.
Quite often planted in schemes alongside dwarf conifers, but then Like lots of plants do over the years, they fell out of fashion a wee bit.
Do you think that gardeners have just forgotten how useful a plant hailer can actually be?
People look around and go, how do I look after that? Because it's not like a perennial herbaceous where you sort of know what you're doing and when to cut it.
And some people, they mistake the past flowers that are still on the stems and they think that it's over or they don't quite understand what stage it's at.
like I know some gardens have got like patches of it in order to take the strimmer.
I guess that you're right when people look at hay that it's not a bulb, it's not a perennial, it's not a tree.
We look at it and think, how do we actually care for that properly? Exactly as you've said.
There are different varieties of headers and we will get into them, but do they all have different pruning requirements as well? Is that something that we'll talk about as we go on or across the board, should they all be pruned in the same way?
Like the carnias and the darliensis, you can be quite harsh on them at times because the new growth comes further back.
You'd be surprised on what comes from the sort of brown, well it's dead looking, but you'd be surprised what comes from the base of the plant.
And actually that probably is a perception that sometimes an old heather can look brown.
But I would say that heathers had a very particular place in our gardens, maybe historically, even a couple of decades ago.
Quite often planted in schemes alongside dwarf conifers, but then Like lots of plants do over the years, they fell out of fashion a wee bit.
Do you think that gardeners have just forgotten how useful a plant hailer can actually be?
People look around and go, how do I look after that? Because it's not like a perennial herbaceous where you sort of know what you're doing and when to cut it.
And some people, they mistake the past flowers that are still on the stems and they think that it's over or they don't quite understand what stage it's at.
like I know some gardens have got like patches of it in order to take the strimmer.
I guess that you're right when people look at hay that it's not a bulb, it's not a perennial, it's not a tree.
We look at it and think, how do we actually care for that properly? Exactly as you've said.
There are different varieties of headers and we will get into them, but do they all have different pruning requirements as well? Is that something that we'll talk about as we go on or across the board, should they all be pruned in the same way?
Like the carnias and the darliensis, you can be quite harsh on them at times because the new growth comes further back.
You'd be surprised on what comes from the sort of brown, well it's dead looking, but you'd be surprised what comes from the base of the plant.
And actually that probably is a perception that sometimes an old heather can look brown.
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