Lunaria annua - Annual Honesty seeds

Honesty is essential for dried bouquets and was once planted or naturalised everywhere. Lunaria annua with pearly silver seed discs is also known as Money Plant. It is a sturdy biennial plant, whose fragrant, violet or white, flowers are quite impressive above robust tufts of vibrant green foliage in spring and early summer. This easy-to-grow plant will fit in sunny or semi-shaded flower beds, in ordinary soil.

Lunaria annua belongs to the brassicaceae family. It is a biennial herbaceous plant native to southern Europe and the Mediterranean coast, once found in all gardens and easily escaping into the countryside and along ditches. It grows from a taproot and forms an upright tuft with hairy stems, reaching 75 cm (30in) high and at least 30 cm (12in) wide with vibrant green, triangular, serrated, 10 to 15 cm (4 to 6in) long leaves. It flowers from March to May-June with clusters of small, 1 cm (0in) diameter, mostly violet, sometimes white flowers, whose fragrance is most noticeable at night. The flowers give way to curious seed heads called siliques. These are slightly elongated, flat discs, with a translucent silvery and pearly membrane with visible flattened seeds. The flowers are nectar-rich. It is a host plant for the Large and Small Cabbage White butterflies.

Who doesn't know honesty? it is irreplaceable in dried bouquets, but also charming in country-style flower beds and natural areas of the garden. Together with white lily-flowered tulips and yellow-horned violets, it will create charming and refined compositions. This plant tolerates partial shade well, making it suitable for the base of azaleas or magnolias.