Bleeding Heart in full flower
Some garden plants have big, bright vulgar displays of colour, shouting from the rooftops how big and bright they are “Look at me in all my splendour!
Others have a more subtle way about them, far more discreet and you have to get up close and personal to appreciate their beauty. The Bleeding Heart plant is certainly one of these.
The beauty is in the detail of the flower, which arch out in stems from the plant and each flower is a wonderful shape of a bleeding heart.
Gareth Austin
by Gareth Austin
This is a plant which I’ve grown and appreciated for many years due to its Scottish connections.
The Bleeding Heart is native of Asia, having been originally brought back from Asia by Scottish plant hunter Robert Fortune, long before Elmore James wrote the famous song.
Fortunes main claim to fame is it was he who brought Tea from China to India, and in turn perhaps change history to a large extent. It was during one of these expeditions in which Fortune returned some of these Bleeding Heart plants to England.
Bleeding Heart is what’s known as a Spring ephemeral, this means it’s a short lived plant which grows, flowers and then dies off to a dormant stage quickly in the Spring time- which means that its one to watch in your garden, as in 4 weeks it will be past flowers and starting to die off for the summer.
Commonly found in garden centres are the Pink flowering varieties, but there is a white flowering variety, and indeed one with golden leaves which is divine.
White flowering Bleeding Heart
Ideally suited to our climate here in Donegal, as they dislike huge levels of direct sunshine (as they are naturally a woodland plant), and they do like a moist well-drained soil.
Once planted they dislike to be moved around the garden, so choose a spot wisely, however you can propagate more from seeds and from root cuttings if you’d like to expand on your numbers. Slugs will be a problem, so keep on top of these with beer traps, sheep wool or slug pellets.
Remember next weekend is Bloom in the Park weekend down in Pheonix Park, Irelands largest garden festival. Opening on Thursday to Monday it’s a magical horticultural paradise! We’ll have a special preview on Wednesday for anyone heading down.
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