Heather haze

In the 1920s, heather was in vogue due to the fashion for rock gardens, so popular from the Edwardian era. From grand-scale manors, the interest filtered down to more domestic settings, with people developing their own gardens and hobby projects, such as building smaller-scale rock gardens. There was a later resurgence in the 1970s with dwarf conifers, valued for their evergreen foliage that needed little attention, used for bedding and rockeries, but then once more the popularity of heathers waned.

With the growing trend for creating winter gardens, however, these underrated plants can play an important role, injecting colour that stands out against the seasonal browns and greys, or the fiery red winter stems contrasting with frosty or snowy backdrops. Add to this the rise in interest in naturalistic planting and