PlantFiles: Bleeding Heart
Dicentra spectabilis 'Alba'

I saw this lovely flowering plant growing in a relatives' garden in deep shade and had to have it.
It is so graceful and airy and the flowers just catch your eye. I planted them three years ago and are doing well.
They greet me as I come home, I placed them in by walkway and they seem to wave and bob their little heads as I pass. Simply delightful.

For me the white flower form are harder to grow than the pink form - the pink form seed like crazy. I have lost some white forms in my early years at starting a garden.

This plant is one of my favorites, because of it's soft, graceful form.
I planted mine about 17 years ago, as a quart size nursery grown plant, and have moved it 2 or 3 times over the years, due to landscape renovations.
It is so dependable, but is slow to grow to maturity-takes several years, in fact. It's mature size for me, is about 40 inches tall, with about 4 ft. breadth.
I have it in a dry shade bed, and seldom water it-and it seems to thrive with neglect, once established.
The foliage starts to look ratty around the first of August, so I cut it back to the ground at that time, and fill in that spot with a large containered shade plant.
I highly reccomend this beauty, for it's stunning presence, its durability, and ease of care.

I am equally impressed with the white bleeding heart as the pink. Both have the same cultural requirements, and both add color and character to spring shade gardens. Both are very easily grown here.

So far I've only seen this variety in books and photos, but today I was at the garden center and bought a root of it!!!
So I brought it home and planted it right away (next to the transplanted remains of my pink one. I don't know if pink will live or not). It has some good growth coming on it and I put an upside down clay pot over it to protect it from the cold during the night. I hope it does well and I'll update this when I have more info!

See the Dicentra spectabilis entry for information on the pink version of this plant. In my experience, the two colors are almost identical.

The exceptions are if a white and a pink are planted too close together, the pink will have a little more vigor and crowd the white, though otherwise, the Alba variety is not lacking in vigor, both spread and flower profusely.

Also, the alba variety will self-seed, (though modestly) which I have not observed in the pink specimins.

Very pretty and worth seeking out if not avaliable in your area.