August 07 2019

Hunnid Bands Bucket

We got the Money Plant. It has a lot of names and a lot of stories. And it's weird: how it looks, how it grows, how to harvest it, how we prep it, how we use it. Even how we get it. All of this makes it one of our favorites.

Lunaria (from the Latin meaning moon-shaped) is the botanical name. Money Plant is the most popular common name. It is also called Chinese Coins, The Pope's Money, Silver Dollar and Coins of Judas. Obviously, the unique silver color and flat round shape of the seed pods are what gives Lunaria so many monetary nick-names.

Not to be outdone by Jess, Stacy grew ours. It's a biennial. Stacy planted the seeds last Fall and it sprouted up this Spring. Lunaria is easy to naturalize - it reseeds itself. Set it and forget it. When they're young, they flower and their seed pods are green. As they season, the seed pods brown and the stem turns a pied purple. The signature silver color of the pod is achieved by letting the plant age in the ground. But that is when the work begins.

After cutting the plant, each of the pods has a dull husk that needs to be peeled back, like gold foil on chocolate coins, to reveal the shiny silver disks. Do that 100 times per plant and it's finally ready to go. It's a real money shucker.

That's one reason so few people are growing it, but the response we get from customers is worth all the hassle. One Lunaria lover stopped by Open Studio because she remembered it growing in her grandmother's yard. The nostalgia even prompted her to pack Lunaria as her carry-on to share the memory on a trip to visit her mother in California. Yeah! Maryland flowers going to the west coast.

According to Feng Shui, the Money Plant is to be placed in the Bagua area of shop to enhance the energy of wealth and prosperity. We just display it among our other seasonal local flowers. It's a treasure, even if we are still looking for those hunnid bands.

Ellen Frost August 08, 2019
This is one of my favorite plants. I first saw it in the landscape at Leon and Carol Carrier's home. Everything about it is beautiful! I'm going to try to grow some next year!

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