Oh Dicentra, is that you? Are you emerging from the ground?
It’s still pretty cold up here as I am sure that you have found.
No wonder your heart starts bleeding as soon as you arrive
but I am so very glad each year that you are still alive.
You add a dash of pink when most of my flowers are yellow
but you are very subtle and your flush of pink is mellow.
Dicentra Spectabilis
(common name Bleeding Heart)
I have had my Dicentra Specabilis for years. The photos above are of it on 20 April 2015 and later on 02 May 2015. At the end of May there were still a few little flowers left at the end of the stems, which even remained clinging valiantly into mid June. I’m never sure whether to trim them off in the hope that more flowers arrive in their place. I am sure I remember having a second little flush one year when I did that.
I found an old photo I took of it 21.04.2014 just after the garden revamp, where it seemed to be suffering from the shock of being trampled during the revamp and another photo from 12.04.2012 where it wasn’t looking very spectacular either, probably suffering from overcrowding, but that was a bit early I suppose. The last photo was taken 21st March 2012 as it was just emerging.
It just keeps popping up in March or April in the flower bed in front of my kitchen window and flowers for about a month. Someone told me I should dead head it to encourage further flowering, but I can find no information to support that theory. Frankly, it just gets overshadowed by the two Fuchsias either side of it after it has finished flowering, so it’s no trouble just leaving it alone until the leaves die away.
I wonder what it will be like in 2016.
http://www.finegardening.com/bleeding-heart-dicentra-spectabilis
https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/180300/i-Dicentra-formosa-i-Bacchanal/Details
it’s not quite the same variety, but I’m sure treatment would be the same
Still my bleeding heart
extract from Steve Vai Lyrics
In the name of love, still my bleeding heart
For the love of God, still my bleeding heart
But who am I to challenge God
In the ways of the world, remain divine mystery
I crumble down on my hands and knees
While his words fill the air, as he looks into his destiny
I’ll die like a soldier in your arms,
and I will be brave so you can be strong
And then he looked into his lover’s eyes and he cried
And he died like a soldier in his lover’s arms
Brave as a hero in a blood red war
And his final words as he reached for the stars
In the name of love, still my bleeding heart
Be well my love, still my bleeding heart
In the name of love, still my bleeding heart
For the love of God, still my bleeding heart
My Garden Transformation 