Valentine's Day has come and gone. It is snowing like mad in the Upper Midwest. It is so damp in Arizona that the groundcover in my flower bed is starting to rot. So,
here's a lovely early spring favorite to cheer everybody up. Bleeding Heart, turns out, loves lots of water. Unfortunately the Arizona heat, not so much. As with daffodils, until the Bleeding Heart's bluish foliage begins to turn brown, don't be tempted to cut it back. The plant needs that foliage to keep storing food reserves for next season. In the Victorian plant lexicon, these spring beauties can mean everything from compassion to passionate love, but in the Eastern cultures where the plant originated, it means just the opposite---spurned or rejected love. The plant also can symbolize bonds stronger than death or too much sensitivity. A bit ambivalent, to say the least! So despite its heart-like blossoms, those mixed signals don't seem to make it a very safe gift to say "I love you".
here's a lovely early spring favorite to cheer everybody up. Bleeding Heart, turns out, loves lots of water. Unfortunately the Arizona heat, not so much. As with daffodils, until the Bleeding Heart's bluish foliage begins to turn brown, don't be tempted to cut it back. The plant needs that foliage to keep storing food reserves for next season. In the Victorian plant lexicon, these spring beauties can mean everything from compassion to passionate love, but in the Eastern cultures where the plant originated, it means just the opposite---spurned or rejected love. The plant also can symbolize bonds stronger than death or too much sensitivity. A bit ambivalent, to say the least! So despite its heart-like blossoms, those mixed signals don't seem to make it a very safe gift to say "I love you".
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