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 'Santa Ana Cardinal' is a hybrid that resulted from a cross between the Alum Root, Heuchera maxima and Coral Bells, 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 'Wendy', 'Genevieve', 'Opal' and 'Susanna'. These were all bred by Dr. Lee Lenz in 1953 at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (now California Botanic Garden). 'Santa Ana Cardinal' was named and introduced by the garden in 1958. Of the other Lenz hybrids it is most similar to Heuchera 'Genevieve', but 'Santa Ana Cardinal' is larger with foliage that has less gray mottling on the leaves and it begins to blooming a couple weeks earlier. Its flower color is a bit darker than 'Susanna', which is also a smaller plant but otherwise is nearly indistinguishable.

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