Bleeding-Hearts

Day 202: Before you even think about saying it, yes, they're pink, but who doesn't love Bleeding-hearts? These are Lamprocapnos spectabilis, Asian Bleeding-heart, a cultivated species separate from our wild Bleeding-heart, Dicentra formosa. But back to that opening statement. While it's not 100% by any means, it has struck me over the years that at least here in the lower altitudes of the Pacific Northwest, blooming periods tend to be dominated by one or two colours. First, we have daffodils and dandelions. Yellows give way to pinks and red in character of Bleeding-hearts, Red-flowered Currant and the early azaleas and rhododendrons. Pink is followed by blue delphiniums in the garden and camas on the prairies, a touch of purple creeping in around the edges. Lastly come the whites, as if Mother Nature had exhausted her palette. She scrapes at the corners for elusive touches of tint, applies them sparingly if at all. When summer closes, she's had time to make a trip to the store and goes hog-wild on autumn foliage instead of flowers, holding back her whole range of blues for that pure and rare September sky.