BLOOMIN’ HONEST
Spring has arrived and with it masses of flowers. In my garden there are carpets of bluebells and other bulbs, bright annuals and above them trees and shrubs in flower but the plant that’s brought it all together is unexpected.
Honesty is an old-fashioned cottage garden plant and it’s working magic. Like a good party guest, honesty has flitted everywhere drawing together the different sizes, shapes and colours of spring. Honesty is a biennial best known for its highly recognisable round, silver seedpods in summer and autumn. Few people associate those flat ornamental seedpods with its spring flower show.
Right now honesty is a mass of tall stems of mauve flowers that rise above clumps of dark green heart-shaped leaves. Honesty occupies the middle ground filling in between low bulbs and annuals and taller shrubs and trees.
There are clumps scattered through the garden, particularly in shaded spots. All are self-sown. As spring arrives they morph from a leafy clump to a flowering plant 1-1.2m high and as wide. The transformation happens in a matter of weeks and the flower show will be over just as fast.
Already the oldest flowers are forming seedpods. In a few more weeks it will have moved into the background with its stems of green seeds. By the time this happens, other tall plants will have taken over. Delphiniums, lupins, larkspur, foxglove, iris and liliums are all growing vigorously poised to flower over the months ahead as spring becomes summer.
Honesty (Lunaria annua) is native to the Balkans and parts of Asia but has spread around the world. It is one of those self-sown plants that teeters between garden friend and weed. Hopefully it stays on the right side of that line. Gregarious is a description of honesty I’ve read and one that hints at its happy ability to spread without becoming annoying.
It is part of the huge brassica family that includes many popular vegetables — think cabbage, broccoli, turnip and radish — as well as pretty flowers such as stock. Unlike stock, honesty is not fragrant. How it earned the name of honesty is not clear. Perhaps it is the simplicity and translucency of its seedpods. Its other common names of money plant and moneywort relate to the coin-like appearance of the silvery seeds. In French it is known as “monnaie du pape” (the Pope’s money).
The genus name, Lunaria, means moon and is a nod to the moon-like shape and colour of the seedpods. To enjoy the ornamental seedpods simply leave the plants to mature. By late summer or autumn they’ll be spires of silver disks. To speed up the process gently rub the mature pods to remove the outer membrane. For a long-lasting flower arrangement pick the stems to use indoors. Colour variations
The seeds sow themselves as they mature and blow around the garden but can be planted in autumn or spring for flowers the next year.
Honesty often has mauve flowers but there are also white ones known as Albiflora, and mauve and white flowered forms known as Variegata. Alba Variegata has variegated leaves and white flowers. Those in my garden are mainly mauve but there are a few with white and mauve. So far none are white. A friend has requested seeds as her plants are all white and she’d like some mauve ones.