Finally getting settled enough in the new house that we can start thinking about the garden (also, it stopped raining)
Currently the yard is quite pretty, lush with green plants with purple flowers. These guys:
http://www.californiagardens.com/images/Dicentra_formosa_c.jpg
Dicentra Formosa (Western Bleeding Heart)They're pretty but toxic. Chock full of isoquinolines. Trying to figure out what to do with/about them. Mulching them is a potential problem not because they're a risk to us (they should break down pretty quickly) but because isoquinolines are anti-fungals and would potentially harm the compost heap itself.
I'm thinking that perhaps I can take advantage of that. Since isoquinoline is an alkaloid it should be extractable via simple acid/base extraction. I could probably just leech the isoquinolines out of the plant material via a crude weak acid extraction in a polar solvent (Water with a tiny bit of citric acid) then safely compost the rest of the plant and perhaps use the extracted liquid as an organic topical anti-fungal for other plants in our garden.
Stacey noted that they are rhizome propagators so we should be able to move them somewhere and possibly use them to 'disinfect' areas of ground where we want to put plants that are more susceptible to fungal infections. Seems like a pretty good idea. They are both pretty and native so we want to keep them around. Just want them to play nice with our other plants.
We have several other native plants at our new house which are also quite lovely. Will be working on incorporating them into our landscape design. My current favorite are the trout lillies which have an attractive flower and really beautiful foliage. Though the trilliums are a close second. :)
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