This plant does best in cool part day sun or shade with moderate to only occasional summer water once established and is cold hardy to about 10 degrees F. Although not extremely long lived, this is a wonderful plant that is worthy of replanting every 3-5 years for its lush foliage and colorful display of flowers. With its one drought tolerant parentage this cultivar is one of the Coral Bell cultivars most suitable for planting in dry shade and the flowers are very attractive to hummingbirds.

Heuchera 'Wendy' is the result of a cross between Island Alum Root, Heuchera maxima and the Arizona native Coral Bell, Heuchera sanguinea and from these parents it inherited the larger stature, taller inflorescences and better drought tolerance of Heuchera maxima and the larger flower size of Heuchera sanguinea. It is one of a series that includes 'Santa Ana Cardinal', 'Genevieve', 'Opal' and 'Susanna' that were bred by Dr. Lee Lenz in 1953 at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden. 'Wendy' was selected by John Farmer Bowers of Skylark Nursery and named and introduced by John Dourley, the garden's director of horticulture in 1984. The name was a spontaneous one with no reference to any particular person. Of the hybrids, 'Wendy' is noted as particularly free flowering and has the largest leaves of the series and they are grey green, slightly hairy and held in looser rosettes than the other selections.

In their book "Heuchera and Heucherellas: Coral Bells and Foamy Bells" Timber Press 2005 authors Dan Heims and Grahame Ware note that Linnaeus named Heuchera for Johann Heinrich von Heucher, professor of medicine and Botany at Wittenberg University and that the name Heuchera should be pronounced following this person's name that it commemorates, meaning it so be pronounced HOY-ker-uh, but like most people, we continue to pronounce it HUE-ker-ah. We have grown this attractive and very popular cultivar since 1994. In order to increase production of this popular plant we contracted tissue culture specialist Elaine Lu in 2010 to exclusively produce stage III plants for us in her micropropagation laboratory. 

The information displayed on this page about Heuchera 'Wendy' is based on the research we have conducted about it in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about this plant as it grows in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant have performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we have received from others and welcome hearing from anyone with information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information that will aid others to better grow it.