Sanguinara - BLOODROOT

Doubles
'Flore Pleno' and 'Multiplex' are apparently exactly the same thing, so don't bother getting both if you find yourself in a maniac drive to collect Sanguinaria.

Getting some of your own
A search for Sanguinaria on a search engine will reveal a few mailorder houses who supply them. I have seen them in garden centres in the spring, usually at a fairly high price (14 Canadian dollars for a 1 gallon pot). They sell them in spring when the flowers are blooming but when it comes down to it, they are best transplanted when the leaves are dying down in fall. If you purchase a potted specimen, be sure to keep it in it's pot, cool, shaded and moist, until this ideal transplant period.

The story continues
After 3 years of waiting, the little roots in 4-inch pots burst into large leaf, and in year four, I transplanted all 10 of them to gallon pots. Fall came and as I had done over years previous, I covered my nursery of pots with burlap, then straw, then a sheet of ree-may fabric. Removing the cover the following spring, it was clear that mice had invaded, chewing the growing tips off many ornamental rhubarbs and chewing the roots of peonies and my precious Sanguinaria collection. They didn't kill them all off though. After my sorrowful inpection, I found myself left with 3.

I still have those three, and learnt from that time forward to adjust my winterizing techniques to include a mouse barrier and lots of cats. I am very happy with my Sanguinara, finding them well worth the trouble. I have them in a wild bed beside a pond, and they are companions to Achlys (Vanilla Leaf) and Hepatica.

Great Bloodroot Links
Vascular Plant Image Library
Want to see pictures? Check out this page full of links to pictures, and then search the database for more.

Wildflowers of North Carolina
This page discusses traditional uses for the plant, as well as issuing a warning as to it's toxicology!

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic