One of the best ways to celebrate Garden Day on 11 October 2020 is by inviting neighbours and friends around for tea and biscuits, a foodie-feast or a glass of bubbly! Add a bit of floral detail to your celebration by harvesting edible flowers to decorate food and drinks.
The options are endless when it comes to edible flowers. They can be used fresh in a number of culinary dishes, crystallised with sugar for decoration, frozen into ice cubes to add to a cocktail and even blended into plain sugar.
Eating and cooking with flowers can be traced back to Roman times, and to the Chinese, Middle Eastern and Indian cultures. In Britain, edible flowers were especially popular in the Victorian era.
You can easily add vibrancy and taste to your own dishes and drinks with edible florals, and by planting your garden with your favourite varieties you will have a bountiful source of edible beauties for regular floral harvests.
Important: When foraging for edible beauties in your garden, be sure to avoid picking flowers that have been sprayed with pesticides or other harmful chemicals. Also, some flowers are poisonous so do ensure a positive identification before it goes onto the plate.
Here is a list of our favourite edible flowers:
Pot Marigold
Calendula officinalis
Daylily
Hemerocallis spp.
Garden Nasturtium
Tropaeolum majus
Rose
Rosa spp.
Pansy 'Johny Jumpup'
Viola tricolour (Tricolor Group) 'Johny Jumpup'
Cape Pond Lily
Aponogeton distachyos
Society Garlic
Tulbaghia violacea
Rose Pelargonium
Pelargonium graveolens
Common Elder
Sambucus nigra
Borage
Borago officinalis
Sweet Violet
Viola odorata
Fennel
Foeniculum vulgare
Courgette 'Caserta'
Cucurbita pepo 'Caserta'
Chinese Hibiscus
Hibiscus rosa-sinensis
Rosemary
Salvia rosmarinus
Garden Rocket
Eruca vesicaria ssp. sativa
Thyme
Thymus vulgaris
Chives
Allium schoenoprasum
Wild Carrot
Daucus carota