Honesty
– Lunaria
Hardy Biennial.
Three to four feet.
Flowers purplish crimson, in May (also a white
variety)
A much enduring and very dependable spring flower.
The growth is stiff and entirely self-supporting,
a central stem branching out freely and bearing
abundance of small cruciform flowers like single
Stocks or Wallflowers.
The colour varies a good deal in different specimens;
there is a reddish purple inclining to the unmentionable
“magenta” tone; but a good mass of
the truer tint, a crimson-purple, is one of the
finest things in the spring garden.
Honesty should always be massed – a dozen
plants at least in a group – to give the
best effect.
The white variety is well worth growing, the colour
being very pure and luminous in quality.
The seed pods of Honesty are flat and oval in
outline, and when they have discarded their seeds
and the outer husk, present a beautiful silvery
and satiny appearance.
If the whole plant be allowed to wither naturally,
the clusters of the pods may be cut and kept in
a dry state for indoor decoration through the
winter.
The plant is raised yearly from seed sown in June
or early in July; being large, this may be buried
in drills an inch deep.
The seedlings must be pricked out and finally
put into their flowering quarters in October or
November.
They may stand from fifteen inches to two feet
apart every way.
The soil is not a matter of much importance; Honesty
will grow and flower almost anywhere, in northern
corners and under the shade of trees.
Once established in a garden, it will generally
supply plenty of self-sown seedlings, which may
be thinned or transplanted as need suggests.
See Also : Lunaria
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