Heuchuras and heucherellas are hit and miss for me too. I have a dry shade bed underneath a very old western white dogwood (40 ft high). Acidic soil, moderately amended. I have one Heuchera 'marmalade' that is thriving there and looks gorgeous every year (4 years old). Another one (Georgia Peach) just a few feet away looks worse every year (planted at same time). Two heucherellas in that same bed died out in their first year. The only differences I can pinpoint are that the Marmalade maybe gets a bit more sun. I have vine weevils in this bed that do a number on the leaves too and the Marmalade seems to handle even this better. As well, lots of sow and pill bugs, which I suspect feed off the roots of the Georgia Peach. This year, I planted two heucheras in pots (creme brulee and midnight rose) and they both look fabulous. I think I will do this to all of them in future.

They are GREAT for mulch! Keep them under the drip zone and between the plants. It's best with any mulch to keep it away from the actual crowns of the plants. But, oak leaves are good stuff! Kim

We have 50 oaks, half dozen or so pines, one super large black cherry and another dozen or so 'small' trees. We produce a whole.bunch.of.leaves. Oh, and I get leaves and grass clippings from the neighbors. And our neighbors have lots of oaks and pines. We have some mowable ground cover during summer and winter. And, I overseed winter rye. During heavy leaf falling periods, I mulch mow first. Then go back over and bag. I have two zones I dump the bags, one in the back and one in the front. During normal times of the year (no excess leaf falling), I mulch mow primarily and include the two leaf dump zones. Mulching over the leaves over a period of several months reduces it to nicely small particles. I spread dolomite/lime twice per year, usually. Sometimes I'll spread milorganite. In the front, I have a bottomless kids sandbox; roughly 4'x4'x8" that I fill with the mulched up leaves, needles, grass, tree stems and dead fall (from the dump zones) and add kitchen scraps. And add shredded mail. Whenever I can get a bag of used coffee grounds I add that. I don't really do much turning of the compost pile; it is full of worms and other bugs that crawl around under ground. I shovel out a hole, fill it with scraps; when it is full move around a bit and start a new hole. When the pile collapses, or gets too wet; I'll turn it out to a bed. (The bin is full of worms, it doesn't take much time for it to break down.) I try to start with a layer of cardboard, newspaper, and/or junk mail & magazines, old phonebooks, etc; then layer the stuff from the bin, then top with a thin layer of peat. I use lime regularly, but there is probably some other minerals I should be thinking of. At any rate, all those bags of oak leaves, pine needles and grass cuttings reduce down to a pretty small space in the course of a normal year. This spring has been the first since the spring of 2006 that I have regularly visited the far parts of our back yard. I have pots that have been unattended back there for more years than I like to think about. One of the pots, a 24" heavy clay pot has a black colocasia that has survived by itself. It had a good 6" of mother nature provided compressed leaves, pine needles and dead fall mulching the plant. And the pot had a healthy earthworm family. And by compressed, I mean that I had to work to tear the compost mat into pieces so as to not tear up the colocasia. This was before the rains, and the soil was not dried out. I'm thinking there is a lesson in that pot for me. (big grin) Maybe I don't need to mulch mow so much! ~dianne

Thanks. This is my first experience with HOT compost. Immediately after the cutting down of the trees I experienced feeling fairly warm temps coming from the pile. Was neat and now I finally know what they mean by hot compost. I've stacked the remainder behind the new firewood and created a separate compost pile where I'm adding kitchen scraps. I've kept everything around 2-3'' thickness. I bought a bag of peat a long time ago. Can I add that to any pile? I know peat is trickier. Thanks, AL