Years ago my Mom had a bleeding heart that she found in the woods when we were camping. We dug it up and put it in the shady part of the garden where it bloomed in the spring and died back in the summer. I remember because it was pretty and she liked it and so did I.
When Dave and I had our first garden I wanted to get a bleeding heart too, but I picked one of the ever blooming hybrids. That plant was ugly! Nondescript colors, even when always in bloom, simply don’t make the garden pretty. All you have is lots of washed out pink flowers, blooming most of the summer. I yanked it out and pretty much forgot about bleeding hearts.
Jumping forward many years to our new home, the previous owner had this lovely old fashioned bleeding heart plant growing by the patio in the back of the house. The house faces east and there is a screen porch just south of this small garden patch so it stays shady. Isn’t this lovely?
Bleeding Heart May 2013
I love the arching stems with the dangling heart shaped flowers and the leaves are lovely, fresh green, lush with divided lobes. We moved some blood root that was nearly dead in our old house when we came here and it bloomed this spring too. Blood root is a native Michigan wild flower that we dug up in the woods and planted in our old garden. It bloomed earlier and is done now and will go dormant later this summer. The blood root is the plant in the center front.
Bleeding Heart with Bergenia and Blood Root May 2013
The prior owner didn’t know what the taller leaves were with big glossy leaves. I thought they might be bergenia, which is a plant I’d considered growing a few times based on the description in the flower catalogs. It also blooms now. Apparently bergenia also spreads since these smaller plants are volunteers. I’ll have to keep an eye on this. The flowers are ok; the foliage is the star for this plant.
Bleeding Heart and Bergenia May 2013
This garden patch will be nearly done in early June with only the astilbe left to bloom. This plant didn’t do much last summer – terribly hot – which was our first year in this house. I think it’s a light pink. I like astilbe but prefer a mix of colors. I might take out a couple of the bergenia and add another astilbe or two.
Bleeding Heart with Astilbe and Bergenia May 2013
The other plant I moved from our old house is an epimedium with lovely yellow flowers very early in late winter. I didn’t have a place to put any of the plants we moved as this small patch was the only garden plot so we just dug holes in the back yard and plunked them in. Luckily most survived until last fall when we got the garden in and could move plants. I couldn’t find the epimedium last fall but Dave found it this spring. It’s right next to the astilbe and should survive.
Leave a Reply