From east Asia now in south London

Thanks very much to Adrienne N for sending us some pictures of a great looking bleeding heart plant (above). It’s one we’ve seen before but never known too much about. What’s interesting is that she has tried growing the plant multiple times in the soil outdoors, but it always dies after one season and has had more luck growing it in a pot. The flowers themselves are great (close up below).

After a little bit of research on the web, we found out the bleeding heart belongs to the poppy family which is odd as it looks a bit fuchsia-like if anything. It’s native to east Asia (including China, Korea, Siberia, and Japan) and is quite hardy too. The plant tolerates drought and is fire resistant. Now that is mad!

One thing we also did read about the plant is “All parts cause stomach-ache if ingested, the foliage may aggravate skin allergies. Wear gloves and other protective equipment when handling.” More info about the perennial here. We just remembered that there was a picture of a bleeding heart in Mike & Julia’s garden a short while ago here. Thanks for the picture Adrienne as it’s one lovely flower!

Spring must be here!

Thanks to Mike G and his partner Julia for sending us some recent pictures of their garden from just outside Coventry and great pics they are! Top image features the great flowers of bleeding heart and also grape hyacinths.

Love the picture below, look at that clematis go! The clematis in our garden is nowhere as prolific. Ours has flowered poorly over the last couple of years so we used a tip heard on Gardeners Question Time a few years ago. Within earshot of the plant we said “If we don’t see any improvement in that clematis next year, we’re pulling it and sticking it on the compost heap as it’s the best thing for it”. It’s not a nice thing to do but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind and funnily enough the GQT tip may be working. If it flowers as half as good as their one below we’ll be more than happy!Their peas look great especially so early in the season and we look forward to see how they get on. We don’t have much luck with peas, we know the trick may be all about keeping them well watered but these below look well healthy.

We had to look this plant below up on the web and used Plant.id here which is telling us it’s a spring starflower (Ipheion uniflorum). Whatever it is, it’s a striking flower!
So cheers Mike and Julia for sending in the pictures of your great garden and do let us know how things are going later this season!