Clearly a perennial designed for romance, bleeding heart casts a spell with its graceful, arching sprays of dangling heart-shaped blossoms and blue-green, fernlike leaves. Whether planted on the shady north side of a building or under trees along a woodland walk, bleeding heart catches your eye with its 2.5-centimetre-long (one-inch-long) blossoms that look like little hearts torn apart and shedding drops of blood.
The flowers dangle gracefully from many arching flower stems. One metre (three feet) tall and equally wide, bleeding heart thrives in the shade of leafy trees. It emerges when the spring sun warms the soil, then lasts into summer, protected by the leafy canopy overhead.
The flowers are delightful additions to bouquets. Cut the stems when half of the flowers are open, in early morning, and plunge the stems into cold water for several hours before arranging. Whether in a bouquet or in your garden, savour most bleeding hearts while they last.
Prolong the life of those bleeding hearts
In midsummer, as the last blossoms fade, the foliage of the species Dicentra spectabilis may yellow and the plant will go into dormancy. This happens when the plant gets either too much sun or too little water.
Either move it or interplant bleeding hearts with ferns or hostas to fill the vacancy during the second half of summer.
