Planting Dicentra
If you’re a gardener, there’s a lot you can do in your very own yard to keep you busy during this time at home - start cleaning out the garden beds, creating new planting areas, or preparing your outdoor planters. Gardening is a great way to enjoy the outdoors, get some exercise and still keep within social distancing guidelines.
Not long ago, my gardeners planted dicentra in a patch down behind my chicken coops.
Dicentra, commonly known as bleeding heart, is named for its heart-shaped blossoms that dangle from slender, arching stems. They are easy to care for perennials that thrive in part sun or part shade on well-drained, moist soil.
Enjoy these photos.
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- These were already potted as bare root dicentra plants, but now they are ready to be transplanted into the ground. Potted dicentra may be planted at any time during the growing season.
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- Dicentra is an elegant, easy-to-care-for perennial. Flower colors include this bright pink as well as red, yellow, and white. Flowers have two tiny sepals and four petals. The flowers are bi-symmetric – the two outer petals are spurred or pouched at the base and curved outwards or backward at the tip, and the two inner ones with or without a crest at the tip.
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- Dicentra is a genus of eight species of herbaceous plants native to eastern Asia and North America. All the leaves are in a basal rosette, and flowers are on leafless stalks.
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- Here is a closer look at the leaves of the dicentra. These leaves are a medium green but will turn yellow middle to late summer.
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- First, Ryan positions all the pots where they will be planted. I plan to fill the areas around the dicentra with various hostas, which also thrive in shade. The trees are Metasequoia or dawn redwoods. In the back, one can see the chicken coops across the carriage road.
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- Ryan places them in small groups of about four or five plants each. Its informal habit and fernlike foliage blends well with wildflowers and other native plants. This garden will look terrific when it is all filled in.
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- Here is a wider view of this new garden bed. This space used to be all grass, but I decided to mulch it last fall and create a shade garden. Looking in this direction the lilac allee is in the back.
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- The few people tending the gardens are careful with every task in order to keep safe distances. It is much easier outdoors at my farm, where there is lots of fresh air and ample room for everyone. Next, Carlos digs the holes where the pots were placed.
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- Each hole is about eight to 10 inches deep. Dicentra is hardy in zones 3 to 9.
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- Always use a good fertilizer made especially for new trees and shrubs. We use M-Roots with mycorrhizal fungi, which helps transplant survival and increases water and nutrient absorption.
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- M-Roots is a granular fertilizer and soil inoculant that is available online and at garden shops.
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- A handful of M-Roots is dropped into the soil where the dicentra will be planted.
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- Then one by one Chhewang removes each plant from its pot.
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- This specimen has strong, well-developed root systems. The bigger the root system, the faster the plant will settle into the garden and the sooner it will flower.
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- The dicentra plant is positioned in the hole so the crown of the plant, or where the roots meet the stem, is about one-inch below the surrounding soil. In total, about 100 dicentras were planted in this area.
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- And if you have the space to store them, always save these pots, which can be repurposed later.
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- The soil around the plant is tamped to ensure there is good contact between the roots and the soil mix.
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- An herbaceous perennial, the bleeding heart plant dies back as the heat of summer arrives. When it withers away, the foliage may be cut back to the ground, but don’t remove the foliage before it turns yellow or brown – this is when the plant is storing food reserves for next year.
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- The plants are spaced about one to two feet apart, so they have enough room to grow and flourish.
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- Once all the plants are in the ground, the area is raked of any debris, rocks or footprints. Any good early spring gardening you can do in the safety of your own backyard is a wonderful distraction to today’s current events.
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