Any acquaintance non-gardeners might have with borage is liable to be made through the bottom of a glass, seeing its starry blue flowers floating in their Pimm's. Borago officinalis is a self-seeding herb with rough, hairy leaves which often gate-crashes the garden party and pops up here and there among herbs or vegetables. We always welcome it at Glebe Cottage, though sometimes we may have to curb its enthusiasm. Its prolific, pretty flowers, with their strange pointels, are beloved of bees and produced over many months. Though they are typically blue, they may be white, occasionally pink, and sometimes blue changing to pink - a characteristic of the whole borage clan.
Its extended family includes a wealth of plants, many of them long-lived perennials and the majority at their best during the early part of the year. Some of the most familiar are pulmonarias. Pulmonaria officinalis has typical pink and blue flowers which give it two of its many country names, 'Soldiers and Sailors' and 'Joseph and Mary'. When a plant has a profusion of common names, it is a sure sign it is well-loved and widely grown. The specific epithet, officinalis, denotes its benefit to man. Medieval herbalists used it to treat respiratory conditions and lung disease (its vernacular name, lungwort, arose because its leaves were thought to resemble a lung).
Despite the fact that pulmonarias have been cultivated for centuries, modern gardeners value them as up-to-the-moment plants. They answer the current criteria of all-year-round performance, staying in good shape for 12 months; they are straightforward and dependable, and have the easy grace of wild plants. Despite there being numerous cultivars and selections, none is far removed from the species.
Omphalodes cappadocica 'Cherry Ingram' is the best of all borages. Slightly later into flower than many, its multitudes of vivid blue are well worth waiting for. It is the sort of plant you can't get enough of and its pretty dimpled flowers (its common name is navelwort) luxuriate for weeks over a background of elegant dark green leaves. It loves damp, dark places, doing equally well in suburban shrubbery, under country trees or tucked into unpromising corners in tiny city backyards.