Tiarella cordifolia is a shade-loving perennial with attractive foliage that forms dense rosettes up to 12" tall. The leaves stay close to the ground, are heart-shaped, and lobed in a manner reminiscent of some maple leaves, and can be conspicuously veined with purple. Evergreen in the southern parts of its native range, its autumnal colors shifting towards reddish and bronze hues are a late season delight. The common name, foamflower, is a well deserved one. From early through mid-spring, 8"-10" bottlebrush-like stems emerge veiled in delicate star-shaped flowers bearing hues of white to pink. It's a delightful experience to find a patch of them in any setting. It's primarily an Eastern North American species and is found in shaded forests, swamps, and wetland margins.
Tiarella cordifolia is a very adaptable species well-suited for shade gardens. It prefers moist, well-drained soil rich in organic matter, and dappled light. It can suffer from excessively dry summer spells, and prolonged winter periods with wet feet. But, if one can avoid these extremes, foamflowers are very easy to grow and low-maintenance. It is not an aggressive species, yet if left to its own devices, it will form an effective ground cover in due time.
Space plants 12"-18" on center.
The basal rosette of heatfleaf foamflower will widen over time to 18" or so. It can spread and naturalize by seed, but dense colonies form primarily by above-ground runners known as stolons.
Take advantage of the ornamental foliage to complement, or contrast, other shade-loving plants, such as ferns and sedges. Carex laxiculmis (spreading sedge) or its cultivar 'Hobb' (Bunny Blue® sedge), Carex socialis (low woodland sedge), Carex plantaginea (plantainleaf sedge), Athyrium filix-femina (common ladyfern), and Adiatum pedatum (northern maidenhair) are happy companions. Add those to a mix of perennials with bright spring flowers, like Packera aurea (golden ragwort), Heuchera americana (American alumroot) and Polemonium reptans (Jacob's ladder). Groundcover favorite Sedum ternatum (woodland stonecrop) adds to the flower mix, as do late summer and fall bloomers like Symphyotrichum cordifolium (common blue wood aster), Eurybia divaricata (white wood aster), Solidago caesia (bluestem goldenrod), and Solidago flexicaulis (zizag goldenrod).
Tiarella and the closely related Heuchera can hybridize when species are planted in close proximity, producing plants with characteristics somewhere in between the two. The generic name, Tiarella, is the diminutive form of the word tiara that was used to describe the headdress of Persian kings going back to the 16th century. Although the individual flowers do look like crowns upon close inspection, the reference is to the turban-like shape of the seed capsules. The specific epithet, cordifolia, means with heart-shaped leaves. The leaves of Tiarella cordifolia have been used by Native Americans as a diuretic and to treat sore eyes. Blooming in early spring, heartleaf formflower is a helpful boost for pollinators when many perennials are just waking up.
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Would you like your plants shipped later? You may choose to do so in the shopping cart.
Note: Early spring shipments might include plants that have not yet broken dormancy, or have not been vernalized and will be frost-tender. Please use your best judgment when selecting your preferred ship week.
Did you know? When plants are available from multiple growers, we list growers closest to your location first.
Why choose plants from the nearest grower? Choosing a the grower closest to you makes it more likely the plants are consistent with your ecoregion and better adapted to your location. In addition, shipping plants shorter distances typically uses fewer resources, something we can all get behind!
Recorded County Distribution: USDA data.
AL, CT, GA, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, TN, VA, VT, WI, WV |
Endangered | NJ, WI |
Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain | FAC |
Eastern Mountains and Piedmont | FAC |
Midwest | FACU |
Northcentral and Northeast | FACU |
MAP OF WETLAND DELINEATION REGIONS
Code |
Status |
Designation |
Comment |
OBL |
Obligate Wetland |
Hydrophyte |
Almost always occur in wetlands |
FACW |
Facultative Wetland |
Hydrophyte |
Usually occur in wetlands, but may occur in non-wetlands |
FAC |
Facultative |
Hydrophyte |
Occur in wetlands and non-wetlands |
FACU |
Facultative Upland |
Nonhydrophyte |
Usually occur in non-wetlands, but may occur in wetlands |
UPL |
Obligate Upland |
Nonhydrophyte |
Almost never occur in wetlands |
Kingdom | Plantae | Plants |
Subkingdom | Tracheobionta | Vascular plants |
Superdivision | Spermatophyta | Seed plants |
Division | Magnoliophyta | Flowering plants |
Class | Magnoliopsida | Dicotyledons |
Subclass | Rosidae | |
Order | Rosales | |
Family | Saxifragaceae | Saxifrage family |
Genus | Tiarella | foamflower |
Species | Tiarella cordifolia | heartleaf foamflower |
foamflower, heart-leaved foamflower
Tiarella cordifolia var. collina
Tiarella cordifolia var. cordifolia
Sizes info
Shipping is free on all plants orders!
Your plants will ship using each grower’s preferred method: FedEx Ground, UPS Ground, or Spee-Dee Ground (in select midwestern states). Our growers ship orders Monday through Wednesday. The farther your plants need to travel, the earlier in the week they will ship. The goal is to have all plants delivered by the end of the week.
Shipping plugs:
Plugs are shipped in full flats, sometimes also referred to as trays. Multiple flats can be shipped in a single box. The flats are wrapped in netting or craft paper to secure the plants, and spacers are used between flats to keep the plants from being crushed.
When you unpack your plugs, the plants will have been somewhat flattened by the netting or craft paper. They will straighten out within a couple of days. You may also gently “fluff” them a bit to speed up the process. In some cases, your plants might have been cut back before packing, if the grower deemed them to have become too tall for safe packaging. Don’t worry, though, these guys know what they’re doing and would not compromise the health of the plants. They’ll fill back in in no time.
After receiving your plants’ journey in a dark box, it will be important to acclimate them to sunlight again. Over a couple of days, you should gradually move them into their preferred light exposure, and water them as per their requirement.
Although we always recommend putting your plants in the ground as soon as possible, they can stay healthy in the flats for a considerable amount of time. The key is to respect their growing requirements: if the species requires full sun, do not store them in the shade. If it is best adapted to dry soil, do not over-water.
Planting plugs:
We consider plugs ready to ship when the plants’ roots have filled the entire liner cell and the plants can easily be pulled out. In some cases you will have to go about it gently, wiggling the plant by the crown, and possibly squeezing the bottom of the liner to compress the growing medium and release the roots. Other times, the plants will appear to be root bound. They are not in the traditional sense. The plants are healthy but they have used up all the growing medium available to them. Plugs are at an aggressive stage of growth. As soon as planted the roots will immediately expand into your native soil. They establish faster than plants in larger containers, because they don’t have the luxury of a lot of growing media that can inhibit the roots from venturing outside of their comfort zone.
We are not going to address area preparation because the process can be complex and is always site-specific. However, as a rule, we recommend disturbing the soil as little as possible, and we do not recommend amending the soil. If you chose the right plant for the right conditions they will thrive. Any disturbance and amendments will only encourage weeds to emerge that never had a chance to do so before.
Installing plugs cannot be easier: dig a hole large enough for the roots to fit snugly inside, then water them in to eliminate air gaps. We recommend using a soil knife, sometimes referred to as hori hori, or a drill-adapted auger if it’s a large installation. If you use an auger, you will need a powerful drill. Depending on the size of the project and the type of soil, the process can be beyond what an average drill will bear. Mulching is recommended after installation to help keep weeds down while the plants establish. Be sure to keep it away from the crown of the plants. For large projects, you may want to mulch the area before planting, rather than tiptoeing through it after the fact. As a side note: if you are installing plugs in the fall, you might want to plant them so that the crown is about ¾” lower than the surrounding soil. The winter’s freeze/thaw cycles can push plugs out if the roots did not have enough time to establish and anchor them in.