I made this quick video yesterday for Texoma Gardening, after stepping out to clip back the lamb's ear in my front garden bed, and finding honeybees happily getting nectar from the blooms. This led to a short discussion on the benefits of lamb's ear as a landscaping plant. Transcript follows!
Hi, Jennifer here! I wanted to quickly show you - It's a little windy today -, but I was coming out to clip the flowers off of my lamb’s ear, just because it's kind of messy-looking in the landscape. And they seed very easily, and then you'll have a lot of lamb's ear, potentially in places that you don't want them. And [I] discovered to my surprise that they are just crawling with honeybees!
Let's see if I can't zoom in a little, and show you. It's a little windy. But they're here. There's one. There we go. And they're just all over the flowers, absolutely loving them.
Honeybee on lamb's ear bloom. Image by Jennifer Capestany.
Lamb's ear by the way is a fuzzy-leaved plant, as you can see. Really good landscaping plant, especially in areas that get a lot of sun to the point where other plants are burning up to death. So, I have a west facing front yard, and I have killed so many plants trying to find the ones that fit best. Lamb's ear is one of them. And it'll just cover like a ground cover. You can kind of see it if I pull back a little again. That's salvia behind it, but you get these big stands of lamb's ear.
Lamb's ear is a no-fuss, drought tolerant plant that can handle a lot of sun! Image by Jennifer Capestany.
So really, really great plant for areas that are just having trouble, you know, just growing anything. But the flowers are thus, as you see, and I find them to be a little bit messy. But of course now I don't have the heart to pick the flowers, and cut/clip them away, because the bees are eating them. So, I guess I'll wait a little longer, until they dry up and go to seed, and clip them then. Darn honeybees! I hope that honey made from lamb's ear tastes good, because, otherwise, my neighbor, who keeps bees, is going to be very sad!
Author: Jennifer Capestany
Jennifer is a clinical herbalist and health coach, specializing in autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. Her interest in plant medicine led Jennifer to spend years studying herbology, physiology, and nutrition. She works one-on-one with her clients via her herbalist and health coaching business, Prairie Hawk Botanica. Jennifer lives on a homestead in rural Texas with her husband, 2 children, and various animals. In her spare time she loves to be in her large herb and vegetable garden. Sharing herb knowledge and her love of natural healing with others is her calling. Steem and Bitcoin accepted.