Hello everyone! Welcome to the Sixth Edition of this personal series called My Plant Of The Week. For those who are reading this for the first time, every week I feature a plant from my wife's garden, from a friend's house or office, or a plant I see along the way to somewhere. The aim of course is to showcase plants on this side of the world, their uses and benefits if any, or simply for their aesthetic and ornamental value.
For this week I am featuring a plant that has been in my wife's garden for quite some time now if my memory serves me right. It is called the
The Bleeding Heart Vine's (Clerodendrum Thomsoniae) other common names are: Bleeding Glory Bower and Glory bower. The plant is called "Bleeding Heart" because of its flowers which look like a drop of red blood exuding from the heart-shaped calyx.
It is important to note that this should not be confused with another variety of plant known as the Bleeding Heart. That plant is a totally different species (as was pointed out to me by a friend @ewkaw when I mistakenly thought our Begonia was a Bleeding Heart). This Bleeding Heart Vine is a climbing plant which can reach to as long as 13 feet. Its most interesting feature is its flowers which occur in bunches of 10 to 20 appearing on thin and long stalks. The color pattern is stunning. The outer part can vary in color from very white to pale purple and any combination hue in between while the inner portion is usually a bright red color which create a very pleasing contrast.
Last month I visited a friend and was pleasantly surprised to know that she had a small garden with so many different flowers. And guess what I found in her garden? A Bleeding Heart Vine with white flowers! Here's a couple of shots I took. Too bad there weren't much flowers at that time.
I will most definitely be asking for some planting materials of this variety to add to the garden. Meanwhile, the flowers could also be dried and used as decoration for floral arrangements as in the case of this framed arrangement which my wife and daughter did in combination with other dried flowers - roses and bougainvilleas.
Can you guess which ones are the dried Bleeding Heart Vine flowers? Yes, they are the brown ones.
And that's about it for this week. Thanks for dropping by. For those who missed some or all the previous editions here are the links should you wish to read up on them:
First Edition - A Superhero Marvel
Second Edition - A Pungent Beauty
Third Edition - Gentle Giants
Fourth Edition - Suffused With Succulents
Fifth Edition - A Ti For Two Or Three Or Four
Do follow me as I feature the different plants this side of the globe. Meanwhile please stay safe. Hope to see you again in one of my weekly features.
(All photos are mine.)