Plant Database

Other Names:  Spring Heath, Snow Heath, Winter Heath

Description:

An excellent groundcover with pink to rosy purple tubular flowers in early spring over green, needle-like foliage; ideal for poor soils, also great for massing in the garden; requires organic highly acidic soil, full sun and absolutely no standing water

Ornamental Features

Pink Spangles Heath is covered in stunning spikes of rose bell-shaped flowers with fuchsia overtones and white calyces rising above the foliage from late winter to mid spring. It has green foliage with hints of gray. The tiny needles remain green throughout the winter.

Landscape Attributes

Pink Spangles Heath is a multi-stemmed evergreen shrub with a mounded form. It lends an extremely fine and delicate texture to the landscape composition which should be used to full effect.

This is a relatively low maintenance shrub, and should only be pruned after flowering to avoid removing any of the current season's flowers. It is a good choice for attracting bees to your yard. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Pink Spangles Heath is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Mass Planting
• General Garden Use
• Groundcover
• Naturalizing And Woodland Gardens
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Pink Spangles Heath will grow to be about 12 inches tall at maturity, with a spread of 24 inches. It tends to fill out right to the ground and therefore doesn't necessarily require facer plants in front. It grows at a slow rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 20 years.

This shrub should only be grown in full sunlight. It does best in average to evenly moist conditions, but will not tolerate standing water. It is very fussy about its soil conditions and must have rich, acidic soils to ensure success, and is subject to chlorosis (yellowing) of the foliage in alkaline soils. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. Consider applying a thick mulch around the root zone in winter to protect it in exposed locations or colder microclimates. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America.

Pink Spangles Heath makes a fine choice for the outdoor landscape, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. It is often used as a 'filler' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination, providing a mass of flowers against which the thriller plants stand out. Note that when grown in a container, it may not perform exactly as indicated on the tag - this is to be expected. Also note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.