Honesty - hanging on

My grandmother used to say that plants arrive in people's gardens, quite often the ones they need in one way or another. The newbie on the horizon is this splendidly beautiful plant, called honesty. Honestly, I had no idea but as it grew it developed the most spectacular purple flowers.

Common honesty is an old-fashioned dual-purpose plant, grown partly for its fragrant bright flowers in spring and early summer, but also for its unique seed-heads, oval and translucent, gleaming with an eerie silver light and coveted by dried-flower arrangers. It is properly grown as a biennial, and makes large, well-branched plants in its second year, after which it will seed itself freely around the garden. However, smaller plants can be grown as hardy annuals from an early sowing, with a smaller flower display, but very good compact seed-heads.

The gift of honesty for me is has been to really look at my life, with honesty, to accept the limitations and to marvel at the beauty that surrounds me.

And if you look closely, there is a small snail hanging on. This too is a reflection of how personally life has been over the past few months, simply a moment to hang on in there, waiting for the skies to clear, for the sap of spring to rise, for my health and energy levels to rise too. For some people the beginning of spring is the moment when the daffodils arrive but for me, it happens when I feel the need to go out, take pictures and marvel at how nature has the ability to spring back. I want to spring back too and to do that, like a plant, I need a sunshine.

What does your garden say about you?

Come and walk with me around the garden over the next few days.