Bleeding Hearts…

One of my most favorite plants ever is the bleeding heart…You can take your pick of pink or white with green foliage. There are a few varieties of this plant, but I honestly like the two featured below.

The bleeding heart does well (in Washington State) in full sun or in deep shade.  If planted in full sun this plant flowers earlier than other seasonal perennials.    If it is planted in the shade, it blooms later and longer sometimes throughout much of the summer.  The websites say it needs rich loose soil that is evenly moist – however in my garden, much of my soil is clay and moist & does fantastic everywhere I plant it.

One special aspect of the bleeding heart is that when the weather warms up and and the plant begins to die back. You can cut the plant back to the ground and don’t have to have dried up foliage in your garden. I have heard that these plants will self germinate if left undisturbed – but I have never had such luck.It will grow back the following year with a vengeance!

I love planting the bleeding heart throughout my entire garden…it is a fantastic filler and brings a spot of color to an otherwise bare spot in the garden.  It is not invasive by any means and compliments many other plants around it.

It does not spread by seed but you can propagate it quite easily!  Below you can see the plant who has returned from last season… If you look closely you can see the plant coming up almost in sections.

To break this plant up and spread the beauty around there is no need to purchase more from the local nursery.  I will show you how.  Just place your shovel strait down in the ground between the plant to separate.  (you may even hear a snap – like  a carrot).  Then from the other side, gently loosen the soil to life up the fractured segment. 

You can see when I just did the one section, it ended up breaking up the plant enough to give me three three new plants.  See below:

Simply place the root in the ground with the same amount coming out of foliage that was coming out of the dirt before & you will have new growth above and below dirt.  This new plant will start it’s own new root system and will spread over the coming years. 

By summer time the newly transplanted bleeding heart plant should be a great filler in your garden too!

The picture below was taken May 7th of last year which is just a couple months after I transplanted  the bleeding hearts starts (like I showed you above)…what a difference a couple months makes in the garden.

Hope this helps you spread the beauty of the bleeding heart too! xoxo, Tracie

Linking up to my Garden Party, Cottage Flora Thursday’s also, to see where else I am linking to this week – please check my “Cottage Links” label…