Shonnard’s Nursery
Plant Finder Tool
Velvet Night Heath
Erica cinerea 'Velvet Night'
Height: 24 inches
Spread: 24 inches
Sunlight:
Hardiness Zone: 5a
Other Names: Twisted Heath
Description:
An excellent groundcover or garden touch for poor, acid soils, featuring dark, blackish purple flowers throughout summer over dark green evergreen foliage; requires organic highly acidic soil, full sun and absolutely no standing water
Ornamental Features
Velvet Night Heath is smothered in stunning spikes of deep purple bell-shaped flowers rising above the foliage from early summer to early fall. It has dark green evergreen foliage. The tiny needles remain dark green throughout the winter.
Landscape Attributes
Velvet Night 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 and hummingbirds to your yard. It has no significant negative characteristics.
Velvet Night Heath is recommended for the following landscape applications;
- Mass Planting
- General Garden Use
- Groundcover
- Naturalizing And Woodland Gardens
Planting & Growing
Velvet Night Heath will grow to be about 24 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.
