Honesty Lunaria Annua Crown Blend Mixture

Honesty Lunaria Annua Crown Blend Mixture is worth growing for both its bright spring flowers and striking seed heads. Those fragrant purple and white blooms appear in spring and early summer, followed by unique papery seed pods that turn translucent and silvery as they dry — catching the light beautifully in autumn and winter.

🌸 Flowering: April to June with seed pods forming and remaining over the winter.

📏 Height: to 100cm

🌿Biennial

SOW: sow directly in the ground in August, or into pots during September to November. Cover the seeds lightly and leave the pots in a cold frame or unheated greenhouse. The natural chill over winter helps wake the seeds up, and they’ll germinate in early spring.

GROW: once they’re big enough to handle, plant them out where you want them to grow. Some might flower that same year, but most will wait until the next spring. After flowering, they’ll die back — but if you let a few go to seed, you’ll often get new plants popping up the following year.

📌USES

WILDLIFE-FRIENDLY

• The lovely Orange Tip butterfly – plant is food for its caterpillars – visited by other butterflies and moths
• Bees visit for the nectar and pick up pollen, attracts other beneficial insects too
• Seed pods are a winter food source for birds who then spread the seeds!
• Included by the RHS in their pollinators plant list

CUTTING

• The very decorative seed heads can be cut them for a display indoors

EDIBLE

• Flowers can be scattered on salads and eaten

HISTORICAL

• The seed heads were used as mini canvases for intricate paintings in the Victorian era