Go, weeds

Well that’s a glaring sea of pink.

These biennial beauties are what we call Honesty. Monnaie de Pape, silver dollars, lunaria annua. But why they are called annual is a mystery to me as they sit as little plants for a year and then explode the next.

Giving everyone a chance to say ‘I’ve never seen the Honesty in the fields looking so marvellous. Ever.’ What they mean is we have short memories in gardening. And two years is a long time in anyone’s lives.

We have a field of the plants on the lower terraces. But the biggest ‘collection’ can be found in my shade garden.

If I was an attentive gardener I would rogue out all the little plants that appear. Thinning out, spacing. Generally being organised.

But dare I admit that I love this insane explosion?

Even if the plants are in the brassica family and thus give the cabbage white butterflies a zillion places in which to lay their eggs.

Even if I can barely move through the narrow path to get to the potting shed.

It’s a fight between the euphorbias and honesty and me.

Plants win. Every time.