Honesty Mix

An old fashioned dual purpose plant, grown partly for its fragrant bright flowers in spring and summer but also for its unique seed-heads. Oval and translucent, gleaming with an eerie silver light and coveted by dried-flower arrangers.

It is properly grown as a biennial, and makes large, well-branched plants in its second year. However, smaller plants can be grown as hardy annuals from an early sowing, with a smaller flower display, but very good compact seed-heads.

Lunaria really does brighten up our gardens in the winter where the distinctive and striking seed heads can provide a really stunning display during the months when even the best planned gardens can lack visual interest.

Historically, Lunaria provided a similar role indoors. With a scarcity of dried flower varieties available, Honesty plants were harvested in the Autumn and hung upside down to dry. Then, during the mid-Winter months, they were arranged in vases to brighten up the home

Honesty blooms in rich, purples, pinks and starry bi-coloured combinations which are almost fluorescent at sunset. It is a vital nectar plant and therefore popular with bees and butterflies, very easy to grow, normally self-seeding itself in sunny or shady positions.

Over a long season it produces masses of silvery pods. When dried, the green outer covering peels off to reveal the silvery translucent “silver pennies” or “dollars”.

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