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Sunday, October 31, 2010

HONESTY

What could be better for an indoor arrangement, in the fall, than dried seed heads. In this wooden vase I have poppy, garlic chives, nigella(love-in-a-mist) miscanthus, celosia, various grasses and a new addition this year. The dried seed heads of honesty, Lunaria annua. Some know this plant as money plant. It was always in the cottage gardens of England and my grandmother had the dried seed heads in a vase in her hallway.

At a recent Austin garden bloggers' plant and seed swap, Diana, Sharing Nature's Garden, was sharing seeds sent to her from a garden in the northern USA.

The seed heads look rather brown and dirty until you pull away the paper coating to reveal the beautiful silvery money. The seeds lie between the two layers. I plan to sow some of the seeds in the spring but as this plant is a biennial I will have to wait another year for my windfall. That is unless the plant behaves like some other biennials I have grown and flowers the first year.

3 comments:

  1. My spring-planted variegated honesty withered away during summer, or so I thought, but checking out some scilla pushing up I noticed nearby a few new leaves of lunaria under the dead ones. So maybe I'll have honesty this spring! Can you tell I'm a fan too?

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  2. What a stunning seed head arrangement RR, great monochromatic look.

    Thanks so much for dropping over to the Patch today, I hope I did not give you too much of a fright! I have a tendency to answer the door in a rather aggressive fashion, years of training on the East side you know :-)

    Your gift was excitedly received, as soon as she came in from school she went straight to the present, then it was straight on over to the "Frank Lloyd" with her new toys!!! I just left her outside filling up the tiny watering can from the stock tank and talking to herself.
    Very sweet of you.

    I also remember those money plant seeds in a vase when I was young.

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  3. Denise-I shall be checking in to see if it survives. I planted some seeds several years ago and I am beginning to think that the leaevs I saw the following spring were survivors. Of course, I pulled them out! As I read the plant reseeds I have already put out some seeds and marked the spot!
    ESP- Thanks. Amazing what you can do with seed heads. I hope the little fairy likes her new home. I was at a nursery that was going out of business and saw these. Perfect for the house on the patch.

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