Honesty Is The Best Policy

And a lovely plant too.

This is Lunaria annua, commonly known as Honesty, so named because of its transparent seed heads. Definitely a plant before its time. I mean, it was named using current buzz word 'transparency'. I hate buzz words by the way, avoid them like the plague. When I went for job interviews, where you scored points for using them, I would go all around the houses to make sure I didn't say one. Usually resulted in the interviewer saying the word instead, out of sheer frustration I suppose.

Anyway, back to the plant. This was originally planted by Nature in my garden. One of these days I will feature something I've planted, honest. I do help a little with this one though. The seeds are very easy to collect, so I scatter them where I want them to grow.

The reason I've featured this plant today is because of the weather. Today we have had the heaviest April snowfall for thirty years. I remember the first time I had scattered honesty seed. I had plants about three foot tall in full bloom when the April snow came. All the plants were bent over by the weight of the snow. And when the snow melted, they grew upwards again, but they didn't straighten up first. Believe me, 'S' shaped honesty plants do not make a very nice display. Fortunately, this year, despite last week's lovely weather, only a few honesty plants are in bloom at the moment, and they're not very tall, so today's snow has not damaged them.

Today is also 48 hours before the full moon. Obviously the exception that proves the rule, because the weather was dreadful, not suitable for planting at all. Maybe it has something to do with the full moon occurring on Good Friday, which is traditionally not a good day for planting.

And finally, a bit of bad news about the blue tits; they've got squatters. Yes, a bumble bee has moved into their nest box. They are not very happy, as you can imagine, but they haven't deserted the garden just yet.