NORTHWEST HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ~ SPRING 2013
THE STORY OF PLANTS: PULMONARIAS D aniel Mount Gardeners, like doctors, pulmonaria from the Latin ofen get trapped at parties word for lung, pulmo. In the by people with a thousand eighteenth century lungworts worrisome questions. Tey’ll entered the ornamental garden. ask you about a plant in their Te frst one in the U.S. was garden with yellowing leaves, planted in Bartram’s garden or bugs. Ten they’ll brag in 1728. Breeding in earnest about their tomato harvest or didn’t start until the late twenti- reminisce about their mother’s eth century and much of that rose garden, how meaningful as recently as the 1990s. it was to her. I’m all for fnding Since ‘Margery Fish’ I have meaning in your life through planted many other cultivars plants, but not necessarily roses. in my gardens. ‘Benediction’ Te conversation invariably with its vivid blue fowers and leads to the question: “What is narrow sparsely spotted foliage your favorite plant?” Afer all, tops my list of favorites. gardeners always have favorite P. r ubra ‘Redstart’ with its early plants, collect them to a distrac- dainty coral fowers renews tion, and become mini-experts her spell over me each spring, on them telling you how and though I fnd I gravitate more why to grow them ad nauseum. Pulmonaria ‘Margery Fish’ (Daniel Mount) toward the pure blue cultivars I have many favorite plants—willows like the stunner ‘Trevi Fountain’. I think and aloes, cabbages and conifers—yet I this year I may even add a pure white am hard pressed to choose my favorite. *QMBOUFEJUXJUIXJOFoDPMPSFEIFM- cultivar to my collection. So I have a spring-loaded response to the lebores which pick up the intermediary Oh no, did I say collection? question: lungwort. Usually this releases mauve as the pink buds open becoming Where will it go with all the other me from my party trap, and I’m free to go blue fowers. Tis changing fower color, members of the Boraginaceae getting freshen my drink, or wander past the hors one of the charms of pulmonarias, actu- room in my garden: the alkanets d’oeuvre table again. ally has a function. Te pH of the fower (Anchusa), the bluebells (Mertensia), Lungworts, better known as pulmo- changes as nectar develops. Te fnal blue the navelworts (Omphalodes) and the narias, are truly one of my favorite plants, signals bees that dinner is ready. brunneras (Brunnera)? Te weedy forget- so I am not lying, and let me tell you why. Not all of the 14 or so species in this me-nots (Myosotis), borage (Borago) and Tey’re workhorses. And there is one complicated genus have this trait. One white comfrey (Symphytum orientale) among the over 150 forms and cultivars can fnd solid blue fowers, solid pink fnding footing in my garden show that that has put lungworts on my favorites list: fowers, blue buds that turn pink, and my favoritism graces not only the pulmo- Pulmonaria saccharata ‘Margery Fish’. pure white fowers. Plant breeders revel narias but the whole borage family. I planted it 10 years ago in a client’s in this variability and the genus’s ability to Now you’ll never have to ask me what garden. Tough many plants have come form interspecifc hybrids. my favorite plant family is. and gone, ‘Margery Fish’ has stayed Pulmonaria cultivation began with Just ask me if my drink needs fresh- put growing in volume and beauty. Its Pulmonaria ofcinalis in the sixteenth ening. mildew resistance, heavily spotted leaves, century. Grown in medicinal herb and early bloom time earned it the RHS gardens it was thought to cure lung Read more of Daniel’s refections on plants Award of Garden Merit in 1993. problems, thus the names lungwort and and gardens at www.mountgardens.com.
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