Old Fashioned Bleeding Heart



Wiese Acres Dicentra spectabilis



 The weather has not been conducive to working in the gardens.  I love the rain, but I am beginning to think I would love it a lot more if it would just go away for about a week.  No longer than that, but no less either.  Well, maybe next week.  In the meantime, I've been occupying my time with cleaning house and sewing, and that just isn't very exciting to write about - and probably even less so to read about.  So, I'll talk about my bleeding heart, a plant of fleeting but oh, so awesome, beauty.  It finally burst into bloom this week - a full three weeks later than usual, but it is blooming.

There are newer cultivars of bleeding heart available, but my favorite is still Dicentra spectabilis, or the old-fashioned bleeding heart.  It is one of the oldest known perennials in cultivation and many of us remember it from our grandmother's and great-grandmother's gardens.  It lives for many years and grow into huge, bushy clumps over time, sometimes reaching as much as 3 feet tall and wide. 

My Mom had an ancient bleeding heart on the north side of her house.  That bleeding heart began its life in the shady yard of the old farm house and moved to the new house with the folks when they retired to a smaller acreage.  Over the years, pieces of that bleeding heart were given away.  Those "starts" still grace many yards, including mine, throughout North Dakota and maybe even a few in Montana and South Dakota.  Bleeding hearts don't need dividing very often, but they tolerate it well and are happy to send their offspring out to beautify other locations. 

The foliage of old-fashioned bleeding heart is a bluish-green with lobed leaves.  The leaves are held on fleshy stems and the flowers form on leafless stems that arch away from the foliage, often creating the illusion that the puffy, heart shaped blossoms are dangling in thin air.  The blossoms of Dicentra spectabilis are a rosy-pink, with a white tip that dangles from the center of the "point" of the heart.  Another variety of old-fashioned bleeding heart, Dicentra alba,  has an all white flower.

Bleeding hearts need part shade and actually do their best in nearly full shade.  They need a consistent supply of moisture, but no standing water.  The more sun they receive, the more water they need.  Bleeding hearts like a fertile, loose, and well-drained soil and benefit from a helping of peat moss and compost mixed into the surrounding soil each year. 

Bleeding hearts bloom spectacularly in early to late spring, adding a bright spot to a garden that is otherwise largely just green yet at this time of year.  Their bloom time is only for a few weeks, but the cooler and wetter the weather is, the longer it will bloom.  The flower stems, also known as "racemes", can be used as cut-flowers, staying nice in a vase for up to two weeks, if given fresh water periodically.

After blooming, and when the weather becomes hotter, the bleeding heart will go into dormancy until the following spring.  This does not mean it died, so gardeners need to resist the temptation to dig it out and throw it away.  It will magically re-appear the following spring and reward us with even more blooms with each year of aging.  I plant my bleeding heart in amongst the hostas, shade-loving cranesbill and Solomon's seal.  Those plants are just getting started when the bleeding heart is blooming its best and by the time the bleeding heart goes into dormancy, those other plants have reached their full stride and cover the bare spot nicely.

Bleeding heart adds great beauty and evokes many special memories for me.  It's definitely a keeper in my garden!