Pulmonaria – Perfect plant for a shady border

If you are looking for, a ridiculously easy to grow; hardy plant; with beautifully coloured flowers; a long period of interest, and something that grows in shade, then look no further. ‘Pulmonaria’ – or its rather unpleasant common name, ‘Lungwort’ – is the plant for you!

When most perennials haven’t even started to wake up, and only the small snowdrop and crocus bulbs are out. Pulmonaria’s have shot their little flower spikes up and are flowering profusely.

I hadn’t come across this fabulously good value plant until we moved here in summer 2013.

There weren’t many flowering plants in the garden considering it’s size. A few nice bulbs, some grasses, a red rose that we chopped back, fed and moved to a new spot, and lots of overgrown shrubs and conifers!

As we chopped everything back though, we found a few mounds of what I later learned to be Pulminaria. Even in the late summer border the little mounds of unusual silvery mottled leaves give interest.

It’s a plant that can suffer in drought conditions, preferring moist, partial shade.

I’ve just discovered whilst writing this blog that the mottles are caused by foliage air pockets in the leaf surface which are designed to cool the leaves down. Isn’t nature ingenious!

The first year we were here we worked outside through most of the winter. By mid-February I got a real treat, when almost illuminous flowers appeared, on the mounds.

They can be the brightest pink, through to the deepest purple!

They flower right through to the end of April, by which time there are so many other plants flowering that you don’t notice them fade away. That is the time to dead head them and give them a chop back to encourage fresh new growth.

Despite their spreading habit – It’s definitely one of those plants that other gardeners will offer you – its not a thug, spreading slowly.

When the clump has got a bit too big, you can just rip out what you don’t want with your hands, as its very shallow rooted. This is the time to pot on some of the rhizome roots, to brighten up a friends late winter garden next year.

Of course these beautifully coloured, early flowers are not just beneficial to our mental wellbeing. They do a much more important job, supplying early nectar for our busy little buzzy friends. They absolutely love them!