Pulmonaria Ice Ballet - Lungwort

The Pulmonaria 'Ice Ballet' forms an effective shade or semi-shade ground cover, which enlivens the undergrowth from the end of winter with its pure white flowers. Its green foliage, semi-evergreen and abundantly marbled with silver, adds a graphic touch under bushes and trees, in a humus-rich soil, not too dry in summer and well-drained.

The 'Ice Ballet' lungwort belongs to the large family of Boraginaceae, which offers many shade or semi-shade ground covers such as small borage or comfrey. Lungworts are mostly woodland-edge plants and undergrowth plants, in which they flourish very early, before the trees have leaves and prevent light from reaching the ground.

'Ice Ballet' forms a low clump 25 to 35 cm (10 to 14in) high and about 40 cm (16in) wide. Early, it brightens the end of winter and the beginning of spring (from March to May depending on the region, sometimes as early as February) with its charming pure white bell-shaped flowers, grouped in clusters. This effect is enhanced by the wonderful association with the green foliage marbled with silver. The leaves, thick and covered with stiff hairs, are semi-evergreen and despised by slugs.

The 'Ice Ballet' lungwort will have a beautiful effect in undergrowth, at the foot of bushes or trees (with not too competitive roots, however). It will flourish in a rather humus-rich soil, which can occasionally dry out, where it can slowly spread through short superficial rhizomes. Do not hesitate to divide it regularly to accelerate its propagation. You will thus obtain a very bright ground cover. It is also possible to use it to line a shaded pathway, or to brighten the base of a wall.

It can be advantageously associated with other white flowers for an immaculate effect, such as snowdrops, the Brunnera 'Mr Morse', or white cyclamen coum. It can also be combined with other undergrowth plants such as Dryopteris wallichiana ferns, Polystichum setiferum ferns, or Saruma henryi which also thrives well under trees.