Wow...this forum has been taken over by spam. Sad. The E. arborea actually resprouted...until a rabbit bit it off! Didn't even eat it, little batard. E. 'Jacqueline' is pretty unstoppable, and even though the main stems were all cracked, they are regrowing and flowering already.

I have used heathers and heaths in my garden. I love the foliage, textures and bonus flowers. They are pretty easy care plants. However in winters where there is little snow I have suffered much die back and lost some plants. You can mulch them to prevent this from happening but then they wouldn't be as easy care as I wanted! If you go to Rockspray Nurseries web site (click on the Differences tab) they have a good description of what the differences are. Sorry can't directly link there as the site uses frames. One variety that has done particularly well for me is Erica x darleyensis 'Mary Helen'. I love that it forms neat mounds. Another one is Calluna vulgaris 'Winter ChocolateÂ. This one has beautiful foliage color in winter. In years past I ordered from Rockspray nursery located right here in Cape Cod and always had good results. The business has been sold since I last ordered. What frustrated me about ordering here is that the web site is clunky and it was difficult to tell what was in stock so I gave up ordering from them. Sue Here is a link that might be useful: Rockspray nursery

Sheila, tacking a question onto an old post (and one that requests email follow-ups) is not a very good idea, as the questions often get overlooked. And the OP gets unwated/unrelated emails!! Better to start a brand new thread. To answer your question, perennials for the most part are pretty hardy and will tolerate, and in many cases require, cold winter temperatures for necessary dormancy and vernalization. You just want to set your thermostat so that the pots do not freeze solid, potentially causing root damage. You do not want to provide so much heat that the plants continue to grow through winter - they need to go dormant. Personally, I'd probably not turn on any heat at all unless you are predicted to experience a cold snap with temperatures in the low 20's or teens for an extended period. Then just set it to keep the temperature just at or slightly above freezing.

Fothergilla is a great plant and fully hardy for me, having survived a couple of winters where it reached -23 and had a week or so of top temperatures in the single digits. Here's my Fothergilla 'Mount Airy' in a couple of seasons. The buds are a bright chartreuse as they swell, followed by bottle brush white flowers. If the weather stays cool, they are of interest for perhaps 3 weeks. I find them a bit homely in the summer due to the seed heads, but they are on a SW facing patio which gets little use then, so not a problem for me. I guess you could do a quick shear after bloom to remove them if wanted. I do grow clematis that in summer spill from short trellises onto them along with perennials around their feet for summer interest. Here it is in the first week of November. It is one of the last shrubs to turn color here, about the time the oaks are ending their color. Please, I beg of you, don't plant Asian bittersweet! I know that you didn't ask for input on this, but your neighbors near and far will curse you. It's a disaster that isn't like goutweed that stays on the originator's property, but gets spread when birds eat the fruit and then deposit the seeds elsewhere with a dose of fertilizer. I am constantly pulling it from my own property and my in-laws'. (My MIL planted it unknowingly years ago, and though the original is long gone, the progeny continues. The farm next door to me contributes seeds to my property.) I have seen the weight of the vines pull down full grown trees in badly infested areas. The Asian version has berry clusters scattered along the stem in the leaf axils rather than a single larger clump at the end like the American (which I haven't seen trying to take over the world around here). Perhaps native insects or diseases keep it in check. According to the link above, even the native does seem to hybridize some in this part of the world, so even it might not be a great choice. Alternative sources of winter berries: Hawthornes or Ilex verticillata/winterberry holly have bright red berries usually until some time well after the holidays, and we usually had crabapples get eaten by the birds in February-April as they started to thaw when we had one at our former home. Jane has photos of the chokeberries getting eaten throughout February on the Birds and other Mobile Features thread (nice red buds as well), and mentions that her crabapples will be next. So there are berried alternatives. Or just string around some plastic bittersweet. I've seen some quite convincing ones.