Heather

 I thought that all plants put on growth from the tips of shoots but a heather I
bought
which had been dyed with food dye ( a light green) now looks like a blonde with
her roots
growing out (or his) and shows growth from the bottom of the plant.

Is this correct? Do heathers grow this way?

 

Shooting sideways, desperate to escape her past?  Or just desperate to
survive because the dye has blocked the light from the main shoots,
thus blocking the necessary light for healthy growth?   Why a dyed
heather?  Why not a plant already the colour you want?  There are
heathers in all kinds of colours.  I'm curious, I admit but poor plant
IMO.  It's normal for plants to spread as well as to grow upwards but
if dyed,  it occurs to me that this poor creature can only put out
growth from the root in a desperate bid for survival, being unable to
do so from the top of the plant.  It may die from the dye as these
plants often do.

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon

 


I thought that all plants put on growth from the tips of shoots but a
heather I bought
which had been dyed with food dye ( a light green) now looks like a blonde
with her roots
growing out (or his) and shows growth from the bottom of the plant.

Is this correct? Do heathers grow this way?

The dyed old growth stays dyed. What you're seeing is the beginning of next
seasons growth and is of course not dyed.
As Sacha has already said 'why do this?' There is such a huge range* of
naturally beautiful coloured heathers to choose from but most garden centres
sadly stock only a very limited range.
*The last count I saw was over 600 and that was many years ago - it's almost
certainly increased since.

Rod

 

The OP might like to do an online search for some of the nurseries
specialising in heathers.  As you so rightly say, the range is
enormous.  I'm not a great fan of them myself outside mountainous or
hilly gardens in the north but I do admit that planted in a mass, they
can give a terrific display of colour.  There was a great vogue for
doing that back in the 70s ISTR.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon

 
Yes, the late '60s/early '70s was when I was cutting my gardening
teeth and I suppose I got malimprinted. Geoff Smith made a super
heather garden at Harlow Carr around that time and I was buying
heathers for my customers from a specialist nursery on one of the
landed estates in the Dukeries North of Nottingham - the proprietor
had made a very good garden in a dry sandy acid Birch/oak woodland/
heathland and the heathers were lovely in that setting. Before then
and forever since I've had a passion for our Northern mountains and
moors and whatever lives on them and try to find room for some of
those plants at home.

Rod