Houseplant Bleeding Heart
Bleeding hearts can get quite large over time, so choose a pot that is about twice as wide as the root ball of your plant, and that also has a drainage hole. Next, select a good all-purpose potting mix for your plant. Outdoors, these plants love plenty of organic material, so choose a potting mix that has plenty of organic material, or at least fertilizer blended in it in order to give your indoor bleeding heart plant a good start. It is a good idea to mix in some perlite or coarse sand into the potting mix to improve drainage. Aim to keep the soil moist at all times, but not soggy. Adding the additional perlite and/or sand will help achieve a moist soil, but will still drain very well. The addition of perlite and sand will also help prevent root rot, which is a potential concern for your bleeding heart plant when it’s inside. An ideal location for your indoor bleeding heart is an area that has bright, indirect light. Filtered sun will work well, and some morning sun is beneficial. Try and avoid hot, mid-day sun indoors. Another concern you should have in growing bleeding heart as a houseplant is humidity. These plants, like ferns, enjoy high humidity. Aim to increase your humidity indoors if your air is dry. Throughout the growing season, fertilize your indoor bleeding heart with a liquid fertilizer monthly, or you can also use a time release fertilizer that you can mix into the soil and not have to worry about the last time you fertilized. Another important thing to remember about growing bleeding heart as a houseplant is that it will go dormant every year. Your plant is not dying; it is simply entering its dormancy phase. Dormancy will occur after the plant is done flowering, typically in late spring or early summer. Everything will start to turn yellow. Allow this to happen, and then trim all the dead stems off. Once the plant is completely dormant, store the pot in a cool, dark place. Check on it monthly and water it occasionally if the soil is completely dry so the roots don’t die. When the plant is ready to grow again in the Spring it will flush out with new growth all over again.
