garden
In bloom:
Plant of the Month: Lungwort text by JASON REEVES
Five years ago, I wouldn’t have imagined that I would one day write about lungwort. The plant had failed me too often in the past. In the fall of 2005, however, we received a tiny two-inch pot of lungwort in the mail. Reluctantly, I repotted it and placed it in the cold frame for winter. By spring it had grown somewhat and produced a few blue flowers. I then decided to give this lungwort a chance and planted it in the garden, a decision that eventually paid off. The following spring, I could not believe my eyes. Not only had the lungwort lived, but it had quadrupled in size and was covered with beautiful purplish blue flowers. I dug around it, found the label and Pulmonaria longifolia ‘Diana Clare’ then became my friend. I began to research Pulmonaria and learned that Diana Clare belongs to the species longifolia, whose hybrids are more heat tolerant than the ones more commonly sold. Based on this recent experience, I soon began seeking out longifolia cultivars and hybrids. Diana Clare is now thriving in the University of Tennessee Gardens-Jackson, along with ‘Raspberry Splash,’ with raspberry-coral flowers. ‘Trevi Fountain,’ with its cobaltblue flowers, and subspecies cevennensis, with its dark violet-blue blooms are also thriving. I am happy to report that we are now testing even more varieties. Pulmonaria longifolia produces long, narrow, hairy green leaves with showy silver-gray spots. A few leaves toward the crown remain evergreen throughout the winter, but the show comes in early spring when the plant sends up nineto 12-inch stems of purple-blue flowers followed by a flush 74 | At Home Tennessee • April 2012