Bleeding Hearts

These 'Old Fashioned Bleeding Heart' (Dicentra spectabilis) have quite happily established themselves on the north, Woodland side of the house and represent some of the very first plants we put in that particular area of the garden. (In 1999, hard to believe!) They've since been joined by a lot of other shade lovers, namely ferns of all sorts, Ligularia, Polygonatum (Solomon's Seal), Hellebores, Lungwort and a few others, so this particular area is pretty full, as you can see in the second shot! And if you look way back in the photo, you can see the peonies already up about 3 ft and putting on buds (just in front of the fence to the right ... click for full sized image).

People ask us every year what we do to make these grow so huge, but that's always been entirely up to them! By a happy confluence of circumstances, of light and consistently moist, well drained soil they have almost become garden punks, spreading out a bit further every year, and we often have to dig new plants (from seeds and/or natural spreading) to keep them from taking over entirely. So usually a few people are the lucky recipients of the unwanted offspring each year ... well except for last year when they too were severely zapped by that cold spell. Well, they're back with a vengeance this year and have just flown out of the ground the past couple of weeks, hardly waiting for the leaves to open fully before they started blooming. There is a white one that hasn't been doing as well so far this year, but I'm pretty confident that it will eventually hit its stride soon, and I'll be sure to post it here. But in the interim, just enjoy these first few shots ...

Photos taken by Fernymoss on 6 May, 2008.