Elephant's Ears: Rethinking Bergenias in the Garden - Gardenista
Bergenias labor under the unflattering name of elephant’s ears but deserve better—they are useful perennials for filling awkward spaces or ending a border.
Photography by Britt Willoughby Dyer, for Gardenista.
Typically tolerated as tough ground cover plants, some small bergenias we recently noticed in Essex have much in common with young shoots of beetroot, burnished dark red in the cold.
Bergenia ‘Eric Smith’ at Hyde Hall, Essex. Indeed, Gertrude Jekyll’s first published photograph in 1885 was of a clump of bergenias on the edge of a wall, interspersed with spikes of yucca.
Bergenia ‘Eric Smith’
Bergenia: Companion Plants
Bergenia and Arum italicum make a dynamic winter ground cover at Beth Chatto’s garden, Essex. Other spring pairings: coppery bergenia with evergreen hellebore, Hedycarya angutifolia, or bergenia and Euphorbia wulfenii.
Bergenia ‘Irish Crimson’
With twists and turns to reveal both sides, Bergenia ‘Irish Crimson’ at Beth Chatto’s garden, Essex. Bergenias, she argues, are a bit like hostas, in the way their non-flapping foliage covers the ground as part of a tapestry of leaf texture.
In the words of Beth Chatto: “pinning down the curve of a border or catching the eye in the distance, where repetition adds to the effect.”
Bergenias: Edging Plants
Bergenia ‘Wintermarchen’
Low-growing Bergenia ‘Wintermarchen’, given pride of place near Beth Chatto’s back door.
Bergenias: Container Gardens
A pot of bergenias at Hyde Hall, Essex. Bergenias get the elevation they deserve in a pot, and are particularly suited to this enclosed environment since they don’t require much attention.