A really neat perennial–great for fresh arrangements, and dried

When we bought our old house, the woman who lived there had sown Lunaria (money plant) on the woods side of the fence and it grew well and self-seeded. I liked it really well and also moved it to one of our garden beds and allowed it to self seed there as well.

When we celebrated my FIL’s 80th birthday, we used the branches green with the little seed pods along with Queen Anne’s lace and some white mums and daisies. Guests thought they were so neat that they took a bunch of it home with them. My maternal grandmother had a huge vase of dried ones at the bottom of her stairs when I was a little kid. They turn completely white and the seed pods are translucent. I really have loved them since I was a child.

I found Lunaria seeds at Target (of all places) the past few years and I have sown them each of the last 3 years. I finally have some decent flowers that will be good for drying. This is what they look like:

I haven’t ever tried to use the flowers as cut flowers because the seed pods are really the star of the show. This particular garden is just about full sun, except late in the afternoon. They grew in dappled sun at the farm and also did well.

You can see that my dahlias are starting to put out seed heads behind the lunaria flowers in the first photo. That is super exciting.