HiCinda, Charlie and others.
Jumping in here a little late to the conversation. I have both pulminaria and mertensia and have to say that the pulmonaria have it all over the mertensia. In my garden the pulminaria bloom for a much longer time and are far more visible due to the sheer number of blooms which is much greater than the mertensia. I have a number of varieties of pulmonaria that range in colour from completely pink through completely blue. Some have a couple spots on the leaves and range all the way to totally silver. I don't have any that are plain green though. The foliage adds quite a bit to my garden when nothing else is in bloom. My front garden is planted in more of a natural fashion and I let a bunch of my plants seed themselves where they will and the pulmonaria is an expert at that.
I'm on the other side of Southern Ontario from Charlie, just off from the Lake Huron shores, and it's interesting to see what blooms when given we're approximately the same latitude. I'm zone 6a though because of the lake.
As you can see I really need to do some thinning too!
