Earth Day 2025

Day 192: There is so much going on right now which grieves me to the very core of my being: opening of marine sanctuaries to commercial fishing, the doors of old-growth forest and crucial habitat for endangered species being flung wide to admit logging trucks, environmental protections being revoked with wanton and criminal abandon, that it is hard for me to include the word "Happy" in an Earth Day greeting. On this, a day when we should be celebrating the beauty around us, I feel compelled to offer counsel instead. Love your Mother. Respect her. Defend her. She needs you now more than ever before.

Hearts And Flowers

Day 194: When I first moved here, I planted Asian Bleeding-heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis) in a bad location, bad because I often broke the fragile stems when doing yard work. Eventually, the plant succumbed, and when I replaced it, I put the new one in a less trafficked spot where it has done quite well for over a decade, keeping company with maidenhair fern and other shade-lovers. It thrives in moist soil, but it also tolerates the drier conditions late summer brings. Hummingbirds are drawn to it, as are bees and butterflies. "Spectabilis" means "showy," giving rise to another common name for the plant, Showy Bleeding-heart.

Hearts And Flowers

Day 217: Asian Bleeding-heart (a commercial hybrid) delivers hearts and flowers around Mother's Day here in the Pacific Northwest, larger and brighter than those of the native species. The plant itself is rather delicate in that the watery stems break easily, so place it somewhere it is not likely to be damaged. I learned this lesson the hard way shortly after moving here, but after I moved the plant to a north-side flower bed and set it back from the border where it could spread, it has done quite well. Hummingbirds are drawn to the bright pink flowers, but the main pollinators of bleeding-hearts, whether native or non-native, are the long-tongued butterflies and bees. While it is now regarded as the sole member of the genus Lamprocapnos (L. spectabilis), it may also be listed under the synonym Dicentra.

Garden Colour

Day 230: Today, we are having garden colour because what else can you do in between phone calls to CenturyLink to see what the newest "estimated repair time" will be for restoration of internet service? You wander around in the yard taking pictures of flowers, common flowers like Columbine and Bleeding-hearts. And then you dig out some old wooden fence posts, plant some lettuce, pull some weeds, do some needlework, read a little, play with the kitty, feed birds, and engage in the most purple blasphemous words when aforesaid CenturyLink changes the time frame from 9:30 AM to 2:30 PM, from 2:30 PM to 7 PM, from 7 PM to 9:30 AM tomorrow, and when tomorrow has dawned, from 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM. "Our technicians are already working on it." And on Memorial Day weekend, of course they are! And my grandmother is a bicycle. Hello. I'm back. And as Eeyore once remarked, "At least it isn't raining."

Bleeding-Hearts, Wild And Tame

Day 213: Sigh. I hadn't planned this post to be another essay on taxonomy (and I'll keep this portion brief), but Bleeding-Hearts, wild and tame, have been a subject of some debate for some time. The waters seem to have reached their own levels at this point, or at least I hope so. Our wild Pacific Bleeding-Heart (left) is still classified as Dicentra formosa, but the Asian Bleeding-Heart (right), coveted for the colour it adds to the shade garden, has been renamed Lamprocapnos spectabilis, although it is still marketed as Dicentra in many places. The native plant bears significantly smaller flowers in a single panicle, as opposed to the horizontal racemes of Lamprocapnos, many of which branch from the main stem and justify the "spectabilis" portion of the scientific name quite admirably. Both have brittle root systems, and thus should not be moved once they are established. Hummingbirds are attracted to the pink flowers and may assist pollination, but the chief pollinators of either type of plant are long-tongued butterflies and bees. Abundant in the forests of my childhood, Pacific Bleeding-Heart is not seen as frequently now, and I feel a slight sense of guilt for all the "hearts" I popped in my youth. If only we had had bubble-wrap in those days!

Bending Rules

Day 205: My friends all know that I don't like pink. No, revise that. My friends all know I despise pink, so they are always surprised when I post images of pink-flowered plants in my garden. While I would hardly want to choose pink as the theme for the beds I see most frequently from my windows. I am willing to excuse it in quiet corners if it comes on a plant I particularly like. I have fluffy pink-skirted Columbines, Bergenia (only because I've been unsuccessful digging it out), heathers which lean rather toward rose than to lavender, fuchsias in both bright pink dresses and pale blush-tinted ones, and Bleeding-Hearts. No garden should be without Bleeding-Hearts, whether plump-flowered ones like this cultivar or the dainty natives. I'll bend the rule for Ma Nature. If her fashion sense dictates that she should wear pink to Spring Fête, who am I to say otherwise?

Bleeding-Hearts

Day 217: Yes, they're pink, and I doubt that a single one of my readers remains unaware of my distaste for the colour. That said, I can excuse it in nature and yes, in some cases, I even find it to be acceptable in my garden. I don't want it to be the theme, you understand, but when it provides colour in a space where it is much needed, I'll use it. The shady north side of my carport is a case in point. Not much survives there except ferns and the persistent buttercups which are the weeder's bane. The only way I could defeat the Ranuculus invasion was to lay down barrier cloth and top it with a thick layer of bark mulch. Asian Bleeding-heart, Andromeda (bog rosemary), maidenhair and other ferns fill out the space beneath boughs of rampant Wisteria. The arching stems of Bleeding-heart are particularly heavy with bloom this year, pink which despite my general aversion is a welcome sight.

Hearts Arising

Day 156: When I moved into my home some thirty years ago, one of the first things I planted was a clump of nursery-grown Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra). I did so without giving any thought to the fragility of the stems, and put them in a location where they couldn't be safely maintained (i.e., I kept hitting them with the lawnmower). They lasted a couple of years and then refused to come back. Can't say I blamed them. A couple of years ago, I laid in a new flower bed off the north side of my carport, perfect habitat for this shade-loving species among maidenhair and other ferns. They've done very well and have just recently come through a naturally-occurring mulch of wisteria leaves. I do enjoy my garden, especially those portions of it which require little care.

A Hearty Welcome To May

Day 204: Who doesn't love Bleeding Hearts? When I first moved into my home thirty years ago, I planted a commercial cultivar, Asian Bleeding-Heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis, formerly Dicentra spectabilis), not realizing that the stems were extremely fragile. Unfortunately, I had put it in a bad spot and invariably broke some portion of it almost every time I walked by. It survived this mistreatment for couple of years, but eventually failed to return. Lesson learned, I waited until I had created a more protected bed for a new one which, I am happy to say, is thriving between other shade-loving plants. Lamprocapnos bears much larger and richly coloured hearts than our Pacific Bleeding-Heart (a sub-species), a show-piece in the early spring shade garden.