A Garden Love Affair

One of my long-time fantasies has been to write a short story or novel that takes place in a garden and involves a love affair replete with sex, passion and the complications that come with secret and illicit relationships. Well, much to my surprise I had an affair in my garden this summer. It did not quite fit my script though, and as a result of this affair I was unable to use my favorite chair, which is on our front porch and gives me an outstanding view of nearly all my gardens.

The object of my affection and attention in this relationship wouldn’t give up her name easily and her being the silent type didn’t help much. But she grew on me and we became entangled in this affair that had all kinds of twists and turns and, yes, apparently, there was even some sex involved. But I only found out about the sex part long after it seems to have happened. She was tall, had pendants of pink hearts and certainly caught my attention.

After some hard work, I found out that the object of my affection goes by the name Adlumia formosa and—for those of you who prefer more common names—she also seems to be known as mountain fringe, climbing fumitory, Allegheny vine and most aptly, the climbing bleeding heart. She showed up out of nowhere and, from what I’ve read, that’s part of her modus operandi. She almost met her demise at the sharp end of a garden tool but something about her held me back. It must have been love at first sight or, at the very least, curiosity at first sight.

Now I have to backtrack a bit to tell you that for the past few years I have been growing a number of Thalictrums, which are also known as the meadow-rues. In their first year, when grown from seed, they can be a bit diminutive and only a foot or so tall and just about as wide with a feathery and airy type of appearance. But one variety that I’ve been encouraging in a few spots grows to 8 to 10 feet tall its second year by early July and then has the most wonderful sprays of small purple flowers at the top of the plant that show up in July and last for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Back in June I thought I’d found one of these seedlings growing along the wall that supports our front porch on the east side. The foliage was familiar, and instead of weeding it out I let it stay. She grew and grew and grew until she reached the railing on the porch at least 8 feet above the border below. It as at that point, on June 30, that I realized that the plant I was dealing with was not a Thalictrum but something very different. Thinking it a weed, it was time to get her out of my garden lest she become a plant I couldn’t control.

I looked at her, looked some more, and even asked the woman who helps me with my garden at home if she thought I should yank it. Her response was, “Why? It’s not hurting anything. Just leave it alone and see what happens.” And I did. But I’m a very curious kind of guy and had to know who she was. Looking at her green tresses, I knew she reminded me of someone. But I just couldn’t figure her out and she wasn’t helping me much. Not a Thalictrum, was she a Corydalis? I went online. I looked at my botany books. Nope, not a Corydalis.

And then one day a few weeks later she gave herself away and in her own sweet time she gave me a clue. She had grown pretty long legs and now she’s stretched from her original 3 feet tall when we had first taken the time to look at each other to the 8 feet she’d become as she began to attach herself to the porch railings. Ah, but there was the clue who she really was right in front of me: a cluster of flowers.

And like her foliage, her flowers looked strikingly familiar. A very soft pink, the shape of an elongated heart and in clusters just like the flowers on a bleeding heart, or Dicentra. But this was a vine and the bleeding hearts in my garden had long since finished flowering. I’d never heard of a wild Dicentra and none of my books revealed one that was a vine, until I thought to see what “bleeding heart vine” would come up with. Sure enough, there she was, Adlumia.

Turns out she’s quite a plant with a history that goes well with at least part of my fantasy. She is indeed rare. In fact, some states consider her endangered or “of concern,” but here in New York—while she seems to be unusual—she can be found in Suffolk County and up into the Southern Tier of the state. And while most of the texts say she can get up to 10 feet tall or long, mine has come up the side of the porch, up and over as well as through the railings and completely entwined herself around and through my favorite chair that swivels and allows me to sit on the corner of the porch and watch the garden, the hummingbirds and butterflies. But not this summer. My love of the summer, my Adlumia, my creeping bleeding heart, has completely entwined the chair with multiple flowering stems that must now be well more than 15 feet long. Ah, the things we give up for love.

You might not think this a beautiful plant but this is truly a case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder. She continues to grow, continues to flower and, as I write, she is reaching across the space from my favorite chair to the rocker 3 feet away and it seems a second chair may be sacrificed to this remarkable plant that was nearly treated as a common weed.

I have no clue where she came from. She may have relatives in the neighborhood that I’ve never noticed, but she’s a first for me and has been a real treat. Even better, on a recent afternoon I picked a few of her oldest spent flowers and picked the flowers apart with a microscope and tweezer to find that each flower had produced about six shiny black seeds about the size of a pin head. So yes, there was sex, but not the kind my fantasy had conjured. But at least this sex would give me the chance to bring this love back into my garden once again.

Adlumia fungosa is a biennial vine, which makes her even rarer. There are written reports of gardeners having grown her from seed and I’ve read that others have been as smitten by her as much as I have. I lost a chair for the summer but I gained a new plant and in my book, and in my garden, she’s been a thrill to have around. If I harvest enough seed, I may share some with you. Keep growing.