SEATTLE — Seattle gardening expert Ciscoe Morris' May Plant of the Month is bleeding heart, which comes in many varieties – three of which he has in his home garden. The first one has light purple blooms and grows in local forests:
"This is Pacific bleeding heart. This guy is native to Washington. It goes all the way up to California, Oregon, up into BC on the west side of the mountains," Ciscoe said.
Whatever you do, leave the ones in the woods alone! They are available in nurseries. Ciscoe says hummingbirds love it, and it will naturalize, like his did.
“As you can see, they spread around nice and slowly, rather politely," he said. "Make sure you really like this plant because you're going to have a lot of and it tends to seed and spread a bit.”
Then he showed us a red blossomed beauty called "Valentine."
“This is a Chinese bleeding heart and they get bigger as you can see, but look at those beautiful red flowers. These bloom right when the Rufous hummingbirds come back up from South America, so you might just attract the Rufous hummingbird to your garden," said Ciscoe. "These are poison so no rabbit or deer will ever eat it but don't plant it where your puppy could chew on it, that's important.”
His final bleeding heart is a showstopper with red and white blooms and yellow leaves.
“Here's a little beauty that I found that the nursery last year, ruby heart. So, it's got this incredible golden foliage and it's got really red little heart. I love this little guy,” Ciscoe said.
"Now, one thing about this little beautiful Ruby is that it needs shade, this will burn like mad if you put it in full sun. That's why I planted it under this little Japanese maple. The other thing you need to know about this plant is that in the middle of summer it is going to die back and a lot of times people think 'oh my plant died' but no, it's just going dormant,” Ciscoe said.
He added one final tip – if you water your bleeding heart diligently all summer long, it will help stave off the heartbreak of dormancy, and your bleeding heart will add beauty to your garden all summer long.
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