Day 1: Pulmonaria

During these times of isolation, I am hoping to reinvigorate my wildlife blogging with this new blog. Here, I will focus on different species I have planted, or find, in my tiny garden, where my main focus is gardening for wildlife. I will *try* to post about a new species each day.

Today was a beautiful day and the light showed off the delicate blooms of what has become one of my most favourite plants, pulmonaria or lungwort.

There is one native species of lungwort, P. longifolia found in some southern counties of the UK, but other species are cultivated here too. Whether native or otherwise, they are magnets for bees and other pollinators. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera ready any time I spotted a bee nectaring on them today!

These plants are perennials and like partial to full shade, with their fresh white-spotted leaves emerging in early spring and their small clusters of tubular flowers blooming around March - April.

I have a few varieties clustered below other shrubs, but the variety I am most fond of is the pale blue 'Opal', which also seems to be favoured by bees, but this could just be observational bias.

If you are currently thinking about how to brighten up your garden, I would thoroughly recommend adding some pulmonaria to your borders and the pollinators will appreciate it too.

References:
Thomas, A. (2017) Gardening for Wildlife, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.