Honesty in autumn

No,  not me saying "Now look, dear Client, your garden failed to live up to my expectations this summer, you need to let me do a crown lift on those trees otherwise this bed will NEVER SEE THE SUN AGAIN..."

I'm talking about Lunaria annua, the Annual Honesty which many of "my" gardens have. I say "annual" but properly speaking it's a biennial, which means that it takes two years to flower:  you get a small, nondescript plant one year, then the following year you get the full glory of the flowers - and the wonderful seed pods. Then they die, and from the seeds you get more plants: which also take two years to flower, which theoretically means that once you start growing them, you will have one year on, one year off, in terms of flowers. 

However, in the real world, some of the seeds don't germinate straight away, and some of the seedling plants do manage to flower in their first year: all of which means that once you get them in your garden, you are pretty much guaranteed to have them every year thereafter.

Personally, I don't grow Lunaria for the flowers, I think they are  nothing special:

...if I wanted flowers like that, I'd far rather have Phlox, which is a perennial, and which is available in a wider range of colours.

But once the flowers are gone, the plants set seeds, which are first don't look particularly promising: 

This is what they look like - right.

Nothing special.

An interesting shape, you could say?

But that's about it.

However, in a couple of weeks, the seeds will develop inside the pods - you can just see tiny dots, five or six per pod - and will become large flat things. 

Then, the two outer layers of the seed pod will peel back, revealing the white, silky, translucent inner membrane:

...and these are indeed a sight to behold, especially if you can get the light behind them.

It makes you realise why the other common name of this plant is Silver Dollars!

In some years, they "self-peel", but most years, they need a bit of help: if you leave it to nature, the outer layers don't de-laminate until the seeds are ready to fall, so the inner membrane is already a bit tired, and starting to rip.

This is one of those jobs which I always encourage the garden owner to do, because it's fiddly and time-consuming, and I always feel just a little bit guilty, when I do it for them.

(A bit like peeling the old bark from Himalayan Birch (Betula utilis 'Jacquemontii') which I simply cannot resist.... I do it furtively, when the Client isn't looking.... sorry, Peter!)

But it's well worth doing, because as a result, you get this fabulous shiny, almost glittery effect, which can last for several weeks, before the wind and rain destroy the delicate inner membrane.

And that's pretty much where we are now:  after a long, long spell of dry weather we've finally had some heavy rain, and some wind, and now:

... oh dear, they are starting to look quite battered and untidy.

This means it's time to heave them out: being biennials, they won't be back next year, so you can pull the whole thing out, and put them on the compost heap - it's safe to do this, despite their generosity of seed production, because the act of stripping off the outer layers allows the seeds to fall to the ground.

And there will be plenty of little seedling popping  up next year, I can assure you!

 

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