Horticultural highlight of the week (2014 week 12) - Honesty (Lunaria annua)

The silvery seed pods of honesty remind me of secondary school art lessons - still life drawing in particular. Drape a cloth over some boxes on a table, add one violin, a sheeps skull, some other random objects 'acquired' from the biology room and garnish with some dead stems of honesty. Also known as 'silver dollar' the seed pods are silvery and papery, you probably know them even if you can't put that name to them.

Much as I loved still life drawing, I now prefer honesty flowers and they are now one of the earliest splashes of colour in the garden. They are incredibly good at self-seeding - they now exist in all the places where I didn't originally plant them (including growing out of cracks between the house and paving. If you get enough of them they create an amazing purple mist that attracts bees and butterflies.

Honesty (lunaria annua)

Honesty (Lunaria annua) - self-seeded in a dry patch by the greenhouse

They can start to look a bit scraggy one the flowering is over - which is a matter of weeks. It takes some time for the seed pods to mature - so there's a long period where they don't look their best.

I grew mine from seed, bought from Thompson & Morgan. They are perennial, and don't flower in the first year but they are super-easy to grow and once you have them, you've got them for life.

And here's the gratuitous close-up (of course taken with my squidcam macro lens)...

Honesty (lunaria annua) - close up taken with squidcam macro lens

Back in the garden again - first time in 2014

So this weekend I managed to get out in the garden at last. First time since November! My attempts at any garden activity had been hampered by three major events:

1. A fantastic holiday in Tobago over Christmas and New Year
2. Minor surgery on my leg which meant I wasn't able to walk for a couple of weeks.
3. The worst wind and rain in the UK I have ever seen - meaning the lawn was just too flooded and muddy to be able to walk on it much.

Fences need repairing, the greenhouse needed glass replacing and the lawn in in some serious need of TLC.

First job of the year was to turn the raised bed over to wild flowers for the year. With the potential that we may be selling up and may not see the whole year out in this garden, the vegetable patch will become a wild area.

Wildflower seed packs - butterfly and bumble bee attractor plants

I bought two packs of wildflower seeds from the RSPB online shop. One pack of butterfly attractor wildflowers and one pack of bumble bee attractor wildflowers. Not the cheapest of seed packs but at least the money goes to a very worthwhile charity, and I love bumble bees.

Hopefully I will get to see some of these flower before we move!

These two packs covered an area about 4 square meters in the raised vegetable patch, minimum effort and maximum insect attractors. Did I mention that I love bumble bees?