I know this is primarily a food blog, and so if you see the title of this post, you may have already "ewwwww"ed. No worries. Today I'm talking about a plant.
Lamb's Ear (Stachys byzantina) is one of the cutie patooties of the plant world. What makes it so cute, you ask? Its thick silvery leaves are so fuzzy, they're practically hairy. In a good way. We're not talking man's scary back hair hairy. We're talking, I don't know, baby head hairy. Abundant peach fuzz hairy. Good hairy.
But as we all know, looks aren't everything. The groundcover grows easily and nearly maintenance-free
in carefree mounds anywhere from 6 - 18 inches high. Those hairy silver leaves provide great contrast in the garden, both in texture and in color. The flowers? Admittedly unimpressive. Lamb's Ear is all about the cute, contrasting foliage - its fuzzy spikes with little pink flowers are an afterthought, though the bees do love 'em.
Here we see Lamb's Ear bordering the gravel circle in a New York garden. Neat, huh?
Photo credit:
Matthew Benson, from Country Living's "Explore a Cloistered Garden"
Why am I all about the Lamb's Ear right now, you ask? Well, just a few days ago, I was thumbing through one of many home and garden magazines scattered around here. When I came across a mention of Lamb's Ear, and I felt a little sad. See, when I moved out of my little cottage a year ago to get all domestic with my guy at his house, we brought a bunch of my plants with us. But for some silly reason, we left behind all the Lamb's Ears. Wah.
And so, just a couple of days after mourning the Lamb's Ears left behind, I was out front weeding when I came across this.
A little bitty Lamb's Ear plant! I guess the stubborn little bugger piggybacked over on one of the other perennials last year.
And so I took him around to the backyard and planted him in the spot I was thinking of back when I was bemoaning our lack of Lamb's Ears.
If he survives the transplant, it'll take him awhile to fill the space. But I'm willing to wait.
Want to learn more?
There are a few different varieties of Lamb's Ears. Learn more on one of these terrific web sites.
- Fine Gardening Plant Guide
- Sunset Plant Finder
- Martha Stewart
- HGTV
- GardenWeb.com Forums: "Help I can't get rid of my lamb's ear and I don't really like it"
Equal opportunity linking, here. Lamb's Ear can be considered invasive. If you like tight control over your garden, it may not be for you.
