Bleeding Hearts, can I move now? (grow, yard, spring, city)

[icibiu]

Preface: Ive been in my house about 7 years but between being pregnant and caring for babies this is the first year im actually able to do any garden work. I grew up in the city and have zero gardening knowledge.

Theres a whole row of bleeding hearts planted next to the house, they are very established and hearty every year without fail and with total neglect they sprout up and bloom. The problem is they grow way too big for the area and completely overtake the path.

I have another shady spot in my yard where i think they would do well while being out of the way. Can I move them now? They are currently very green and still have some blooms on them. Everything im reading says to wait until July-ish when the leaves start to turn yellow. But i know myself and theres no way I will be doing heavy gardening work once the summer heat hits. If I move them now will they survive? I dont care if they die off this year as long as they come back next spring.

[Harpaint]

Transplanting in the heat is also not good for the plants! The best time to transplant is in early spring before the plants get full growth again and before they begin to flower.

[icibiu]

Thanks Harpaint! Unfortunately that ship has sailed as they already sprouted and they really get in the way. Would moving them now lead to certain death?

[Zoisite]

It might be less work to relocate the path than to move a bunch of well established bleeding hearts.

Okay, just joking, or sort of half joking and half serious. Yes you can move them now but it will be a BIG, frustrating job and you will need to trim the upper foliage back because the plants will go into some shock.

Seriously, well established bleeding hearts that have been there that many years will have huge root systems that can be tricky and time consuming to dig up. Carefully! The tuberous looking roots are easily broken, thick, rubbery, flexible, long and swollen to the size of your wrist and they look like spokes of a wheel or octopus tentacles radiating out from the octopus big swollen head (that head is the crown of the plant) and the whole system for each plant can be as wide and as big across as a wagon wheel. You'll have to get down on your hands and knees to carefully excavate all the soil away from above, around and under the whole crown and radiating roots if you want to lift the plant without damaging the crown or having roots snapping off. Try it with just one first to see what it's like. Then to replant it and position the radiating roots correctly you will have to dig a hole as wide across and as deep as the hole it came out of and that's going to be a big hole.

Another alternative to relocating them is to keep the bleeding hearts biggest branches and foliage trimmed back at the tips and with the main trunks of the plants tied back to stakes to stand more upright during their growth and blooming period. Then they won't encroach and hang over the path. If you keep the long tips trimmed back shorter you might get continuous blooming out of the new side branches for 3 months or more. I have a couple that I keep trimmed back because they're too big otherwise, and they produce bushy branches and blooms continuously for all of spring and into summer. It's only the ones that I trim that do that. The untrimmed ones only bloom for a few weeks in the spring.


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[BaxterG]

We just transplanted some bleeding hearts earlier this week. I'd say go for it. If it's hot and sunny, I do wait until evening or at least a cloudy day. After transplanting, give them a good soaking of water. They're a hearty plant, so should be fine. Like most plants, it will likely look a little wilted or haggard for a week or so after planting, but should recover just fine if you keep watered and get plenty of the roots included in the transfer.