A few days ago, I stumbled upon a much more established Finnish garden at Vanha Talo Suomi and was especially impressed with her neatly organized specimen list. At last count, I have four different spreadsheets and three apps around to keep track of things, and somehow manage to not efficiently update any of them. This seems like a much more tidy solution, especially since I can add to it slowly and amass information about each plant in one place.

I’m starting with Dicentra spectabilis, the bleeding heart (särkynytsydän), because it was one of the first perennials that I was set on planting. Not long after moving here, we visited some family friends at their rambling old Victorian house. Their garden had truly huge specimens that reached chest height and were stunning to see in full flower. I immediately wanted some for our house as well… then forgot about it for several years.

In mid-May 2020, I finally got around to visiting the local nursery and picking up these two little guys. They grew a bit and then disappeared in the autumn, exactly like they’re supposed to. At that point, I sort of forgot about them again.

Then the next spring, in 2021, having no idea when they would pop out of the ground, I started fretting and bought another plant. Just in case. That ended up going in right behind one of the previous ones. Which then emerged a week later and rapidly grew to triple its size from the year before. That’s the older one in front, in the picture on the right. The newer one is closer to the fence and looks very dwarfed.

Now, you’d think I would’ve calmed down by the next year. Instead, I decided that I needed the white-flowered variant (Dicentra spectabilis ‘Alba’) and ordered it online. It went right in front of the older plant on the other side.

This spring, the biggest plant (now in its fourth year) has 9 flower stalks, the one behind it (3rd year) has 8, the one squished between the trees (4th year) has only 5, and the Alba (2nd year) has 4. If the latter two don’t catch up next year, I will consider moving one to give them more space.

Final count:

• Dicentra spectabilis (pink flowered) – 3
• Dicentra spectabilis ‘Alba’ (white flowered) – 1