Can you tell what it is yet?

April 23, 2006

Can you tell what it is yet?

So here's a little quiz for you. The plant in this picture - the one with the cream-edged leaves - turned up in this bed and has been perplexing me ever since. Is it a weed? Any stabs at identifying it would be much appreciated. It seems to be preparing to flower with what looks like small creamy bobbly blooms and I want to figure out if it's something I should cull before it sets seed. I am minded to keep it at the moment because the leaves are pretty and it's helping to cover up the rather unattractive brick wall behind it.

If you look closely at this pic you'll note a grapefruit half being used as a slug trap (although at the moment it seems to be attracting more woodlice than slugs) and some rather badly munched hellebores. They were beautiful earlier in the spring but some caterpillars have been taking bites out of them. I was loathe to kill them in case they were some rare butterfly or moth. So my second question is this: what caterpillar types would feed on hellebores?

23 Apr 2006 10:23:40 | My garden

5 Comments

I am fairly sure that you have got a variegated honesty growing there Jane. There are purple and white flowered versions - they are both really pretty and as an added bonus there will be attractive shimmery seed cases to follow. It is a biennial so you need to save seeds if you like it. You made a good decision to leave it be !

Posted by: Anna | April 23, 2006 at 11:43 AM

Wow that was quick! And you're totally right, by the look of this pic: http://www.mooseyscountrygarden.com/flowering-annuals/white-honesty-seeder.html

I wonder where on earth the seed came from? Brought in in some compost from someone else's garden no doubt ...

Very glad I let it be now ...

Posted by: Jane Perrone | April 23, 2006 at 12:03 PM

That is exactly what I would have said, had I not been out and about till now. Personally, I don't like variegated honesty much, but some people do like it.

Posted by: Jeremy Cherfas | April 23, 2006 at 08:19 PM

Hi, I wasn't sure if we told you about your listing in the Delightfulblogs directory but we recently added your blog and it's been one of the most popular in the Garden section.

Best,

Lynda Keeler
Delight.com
Delighfulblogs.com

Posted by: Lynda | April 25, 2006 at 05:01 PM

Thanks for that Lynda - I hadn't come across your site before but will take a look now!

Posted by: Jane Perrone | May 20, 2006 at 04:55 PM

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