With such beautiful weather recently, our plants have been flourishing. This month’s stand out has got to be Honesty. Known best for its seed pods, rather than its flowers; Honesty can be a beautiful addition to your garden without being too ostentatious!
From the genus Lunaria, honesty is also sometimes called a ‘silver dollar plant’. There are several variations of Lunaria, including ‘Lunaria annua’, which has a pure white flower and is biennial (meaning a plant grown from seed will take two years to come to fruition and then die). If you’re looking for an Honesy plant that doesn’t take quite so long to flower, there is also the perennial ‘Lunaria rediviva’, This has cross shaped flowers in a pale lavender colour, with heart shaped green leaves. Both these variations have distinctive seed heads, flat and almost papery; the annua Honesty has round, silver dollar shaped seed heads (from which they get their nickname!), whilst the rediviva seed heads are more elliptical.
The seedpods that are so distinctive in Honesty plants are also what make them so easy to plant – and even easier for them to overtake your garden! Carried on the wind, the papery pods will dry out and release the seeds to germinate where they fall. If you want to grow Honesty from seed, all you have to do is collect these pods, let them dry out and collect the seeds. They will flourish planted straight into the garden, though if you’d like to grow them in planters or seed trays you should add a little old compost first. Honesty will develop thick roots, almost like tubers. This is common amongst the brassica family to which Honesty belongs, along with mustard. Due to this, they should not be kept in pots for an extended amount of time, as the roots will not have room to develop properly. They will flourish in almost any garden, though it will do better in less acidic conditions. The perennial rediviva prefers to be kept slightly damp and all variations of Honesty prefer not to be overfed (so stay away from the manure!). Try not to plant in the shade, though semi-shade should be fine.
These are a great plant for us gardeners who don’t want to expend too much effort! They’ll grow fantastically if pretty much left alone. This also makes them great for kids learning to garden – they can watch the whole process from seed to flower and there’s not a lot that can go wrong!