Herb of the Week for 10th April
Easter Bunnies Love Honesty
Easter is here and whether we are religious or not there is without doubt a focus on Easter bunnies and Easter eggs. Our herb farm bunnies are having a meeting and are surrounded by the seed coats of the honesty plant. Some people call it the money plant, moon plant or silver dollar and it is classified as a herb.
Honesty
is classified as a biennial plant but I find it acts like an annual herb
and usually completes its life cycle in one year rather than two. When it
first grows the leaves can be aten in a salad.
Then purple flowers appear and these are edible flowers.
There is a lovely white flowered honesty with variegated leaves and pure
white flowers.
After the flowers come the seed pods. They look like silver coins when the
covering drops off to release the seed.
Honesty, lunaria annua, is an excellent self seeder and perfect for borders
that need filling or you could try it like we do at the herb farm and let
it naturalise in the woods.
The silver seed pods can be picked for lovely winter arrangements.
Our herb farm bunnies have decided to hide themselves in the gardens and for those children who can find them on our walk and tell us which gardens they are in, then there will be an Easter treat for them.
We are open over Easter except for Easter Monday.