It’s easy to think of a garden as a delicate place that’s free from danger… wimpy-sounding plant names like “baby’s breath” certainly don’t help.
But if you’re trying to add an air of deadly elegance to your landscape, bloodroot is the plant for you.
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Filled with toxic scarlet sap, Sanguinaria canadensis is a North American native that lives up to its name.
But aside from being a bit macabre, this plant has aesthetic beauty going for it – it flaunts palmate, deeply-lobed leaves and gorgeous white flowers, which are among the earliest to bloom in spring.
Combine all that with minimal maintenance, and bloodroot makes a pretty strong case for being grown in your garden. Court is adjourned!
Well… except it’s not, because you’ll need to know how to cultivate S. canadensis properly first. Hence, this guide. Bloodroot know-how, here we come!
Such an epic journey demands a map, of course:
What Is Bloodroot?Also known as puccoon, red puccoon, and bloodwort, bloodroot is a member of the Papaveraceae family, i.e. the poppies.
This family includes about 825 species, including the horticulturally famous bleeding heart and the criminally infamous opium poppy.
Hardy in USDA Zones 3 to 8 and native to the eastern half of North America, S. canadensis is distributed from Canada all the way south to Florida.
Across this rather large area, the plant can be found growing on damp forest floors, flood plains, and water-adjacent slopes. By slowly branching out from its root system to form large colonies, the plant can eventually cover substantial chunks of ground.
S. canadensis is
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