The Pulmonaria Colour Party

There's a Pulmonaria colour party blooming in the leavesnbloom garden and the nectar rich flowers are just so irresistible to the bumble bees. Quite a bit of my garden is cool, moist and shady and the soil can be so difficult to work with so this little woodland plant is just perfect for those conditions. Pulmonaria or Lungwort is known for its spotted silver markings on the leaves but  the first one to flower each year for me is Pulmonaria rubra and this one has plain green leaves.  

Pulmonaria rubra

It can be a bit of a thug but I over look that as it gives me a coral pink colour in the garden when there is little else flowering in the last few weeks of winter and it's still in flower today in April.  The only thing I would suggest is to deadhead before it sets seed and  cut back the leaves later in the season as they just start to take over in the border and become very large.  The leaves are very coarse so I suggest using gloves as I'm sure in the past that I've come out in a rash when working with these leaves.

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Pulmonaria officinalis

I have a few unnamed older varieties that came from our previous gardens. They are so colourful as they have much more of  a variety of coloured blooms ranging from pink to blue on the same plant compared to the others in the garden and out of all of the others the bees much prefer these plants.  

I'm beginning to wonder if these are the British native Pulmonaria officinalis?  

Unfortunately these plants are very susceptible to mildew so if it gets an attack I cut all the leaves off.  Then I give the plants a feed of blood, fish and bonemeal and it doesn't take long for new fresh growth to appear.  It probably doesn't help that some of the clumps are growing in a drier spot in the sun which also makes them more susceptible to mildew.

The rest of the colour party are the cultivated bunch.............. 

Pulmonaria longifolia "Diane Clare"

Now if you have only room for one plant then this should be your choice as it grows into an impressive sized clump of leaves and starts to flower with violet blue flowers  in  late March.  It's leaves are large with lovely silver spotted markings  in the spring but by Summer time the leaves are nearly completely covered in silver.   After buying a small plant last Spring it has now grown in the shade to at least  1.5  foot spread and a height of about 10 inches tall.  Thankfully this plant isn't  susceptible to mildew.

Pulmonaria "Raspberry Splash"

This plant has nice raspberry red/pink flowers and long elongated spotted leaves.  It too was a new addition to the garden last year and has established really well. It's leaves are quite elongated with silver markings but I'm sure that the leaves last year took on a yellowish tinge as the season progressed.  I didn't have any problems with mildew on this plant last summer either.

Pulmonaria "Opal"

These little blooms are pale blue on good silver marked leaves and have just started to flower.  It's not as vigorous as Diane Clare or Raspberry Splash but it still has formed a good clump after being in the garden for just one year.  This plant is near the back of a border along with the Erythroniums and I don't know if it had mildew or not last summer as I just couldn't see that far back into the border as the other herbaceous plants matured.

Pulmonaria "Blue Ensign"

This seems to be the least vigorous in the garden for me and has plain green leaves with the most beautiful deep sapphire blue flowers. Very few of the flower buds have opened yet so for me this is the latest to flower in the garden. This plant dies away completely during the summer months so yet again no need to worry about mildew with this one.

Do you see my other little visitor in the garden?  nest building has just begun just over our boundary fence with Mr and Mrs Blackbird!

I'm just so glad that I have plant labels on many of these plants as they seem so hard to distinguish from each other  especially if you grow the seedlings from the garden. 

 

Thank you for taking the time to visit today.

"Ever since the creation of the world  his eternal power and divine nature, invisible  though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has  made. So they are without excuse." Romans 1:20

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