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. 

This information about Heuchera 'Wendy' displayed on this web page is based on research we have conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations we have made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how our crops have performed in containers in the nursery field. Where appropriate, we will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share cultural information that would aid others in growing this plant.