Lunaria

Lunaria for the full moon.

Honesty for its pure white color.

Money plant because we can all use a little extra now and then, and if we can grow it in the backyard, so much the better.

This plant has self-seeded since the first year I was here and planted some seeds in a flower bed. Now it comes up wherever it pleases and most of the time I let it because it’s so beautiful with spring’s pink or white phlox-like blossoms, and in the autumn when the seed pods dry and I peel them away to reveal the transparent pearly white membrane that once held the seeds apart in the pod.

At other times it really looks like an undesirable, its first-year floret of leaves resembling a thistle without the thorns, and in the time between blossom and seed looking like a struggling half-hybrid.

It is officially called Lunaria because of its color and shape resemblance to the moon, but every popular plant picks up familiar names.

So I have harvested this year’s money from the back yard and placed some for display and shared more this friends. That can’t be too bad either.