The Heuchera family has been a favorite specialty in Blooms breeding since 1920, with Blooms of Bressingham varieties continually receiving awards of Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society.

This Blooms tradition continues through the breeding efforts of Charles Oliver who gives credit to Alan Bloom for establishing a foundation of Heuchera varieties on which all modern Heuchera breeding is based. Heucheras and Tiarellas are Oliver’s specialty. His cultivars are bred and selected for hardiness in the harsh winters and dry summer shade of his western Pennsylvania location, as well as extended blooming seasons.

Charles Oliver earned his undergraduate degree in biology from Harvard and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Yale in 1970, specializing in the evolutionary genetics of butterflies and moths. Ironically, many of the early plants grown by the esteemed nurseryman and plant breeder weren’t for flora and fauna, but to provide food for his insects.

Not that Oliver hasn’t always loved plants. He began growing flowers as a boy in his mother’s garden. “I always enjoyed hiking and bringing flowers back,” he said. “I would go around the area and pick up things. I began growing native plants in high school.” Oliver continued to grow and nurture plants right up until he and his wife , Martha, founded The Primrose Path Nursery (Scottdale, Pa.) in 1986.

A great part of the Primrose Path’s success no doubt has come because of the Olivers’ willingness to take the path less followed, producing Western Pennsylvania plants often overlooked by others. They specialized in their own plant introductions, which also meant doing their own breeding.

Much of his hybridization work has involved the genus Heuchera. Beginning in the late 1980s with bronze-leaved forms such as ‘Palace Purple’ and ‘Montrose Ruby’, he has combined garden forms with many of the wild species to produce hybrids that combine the best of rich foliage coloration with showy flowers and pleasing proportions in plants of enhanced vigor and hardiness compared to others available in the marketplace. In addition to Heuchera, he has hybridized and selected plants in Tiarella, Phlox and Primula.

For the introduction of more than 60 new plants to the trade in a decade, he was given the Marcel LePiniec Award in 1998 by the North American Rock Garden Society, of which he is a life member. His hybrids have also won awards in Holland and England.

Blooms of Bressingham varieties from Charles Oliver are Heuchera 'Harmonic Convergence', 'Silver Lode', 'Raspberry Ice' and 'Raspberry Chiffon'. Also Heucherella 'Quicksilver' and Tiarella 'Pink Brushes' and 'Pink Pearls.