Saturday, April 19, 2008

Job's Tears


Each spring, one of the first things in my garden to bloom is the lungwort . It was one of the first things I planted after we moved to our house and finally got our own yard. My plant is a cutting from my mother's plant, which was a cutting from her mother's plant in Ireland.

My grandmother, my Nan-Nan, would visit and bring gifts for all of us. On one occasion when we picked her up at the airport, she informed my mother that as soon as we got back to the house, my mother had to put on the oven. My grandmother had two rapidly thawing pheasants in her suitcase! She proudly announced that they had been poached for us from the lord's estate. (a viscount, actually, and a long story for some other day.) She was famous for smuggling all sorts of things into the country.

That same trip, she brought over some of the plant she always called Job's Tears because of the white spots on its leaves. It comes back every year, little multicolored flowers blooming all season long, and although it prefers a bit of shade, but I've seen it do well in full sun.

5 comments:

Tam said...

Ooooooh! Pretty!

Anonymous said...

That's lovely.

Would it survive in Oklahoma?
110 in the summer, but mild winters.
I found your site through Rachel Lucas, now you're a daily read.

Anonymous said...

Nice story and nice flowers. I had nastutiums blossoming all winter long because the seeds from summer plants fell into my potting soil that I used to repot my house plants and the nasturtium seeds sprouted randomly and grew indoors all through the winter.It was like keeping a piece of last summer's colors alive all through this past record breaking snowfall of.
winter. which reminds me, it's almost time to start planting this summer's seedlings.
Can the Job's Tears grow indoors through the winter?

breda said...

janna - I think it would do fine as long as you planted it where it would get shade during the hottest part of the day.

angus - I've never seen it grown indoors, but it would be interesting to try.

phlegmfatale said...

what a delightful bit of contraband!