On Monday 12th September 2016 I visited the botanical gardens in Edinburgh, and I wandered around the collections looking for edimentals (edible ornamentals), many of which are also forest garden plants, in preparation for my edimentals walk the following Saturday. See http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=6572 . Conclusion: there’s a lot of food in spring in the gardens!
I ate Saxifraga stolonifera tempura in Japan in the spring! A great edimental (house plant in colder climates)
Young shoots of Tricyrtis are used in the Far East as a spring vegetable!
Young shoots of Tricyrtis are used in the Far East as a spring vegetable!
Died back at this time of year…I’m still hoping to grow this yellow form of Rice Lily
Maianthemum purpurea, edible young shoots in the Himalaya
Ligularia fischeri, a vegetable in Korea (search my blog edimentals.com for more information on this great shade loving edimental)
Streptopus amplexifolius, watermelon berry. See http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=6425
Monarda
Aralia cordata, Udo growing well in dry soil under a Scots Pine!
Aralia cordata, Udo berries
A mini-permaveggie…a rhubarb species from China…great for the edible rock garden!
Lilium leichtlinii, one of the species used in Japan (edible bulbs)
Lilium leichtlinii again
Oplopanax japonicus… I’ve eaten tempura of the young shoots of this plant’s North American brother O. horridus: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=1161, a great shade loving plant shrub in the Ginseng family. See http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=1161
Trachystemon: i discovered this woodlander is used in Bulgaria in the spring. See http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=1269
Angelica gigas, Korean angelica is used in the Far East! I haven’t seen such giant (gigas) plants as these before! Mentioned in my book and a great edimental at flowering stage!
There’s a great exhibition of Nepalese plant art at the moment. Here’s Girardinia diversifolia, a plant in the nettle family which like nettle is edible and a fiber plant
Girardinia diversifolia fabri
Gunnera (not sure if this is the edible G. tinctoria)
Eucrybia (Aster) macrophylla from North America has edible young leaves. This is a beautiful edimental form “Twilight”
Allium wallichii, Sherpa onion one of the 80 plants in my book…see also edimentals.com. There is a lot of this plant in the botanics
Allium wallichii, Sherpa onion one of the 80 plants in my book…see also edimentals.com. There is a lot of this plant in the botanics
Allium wallichii, Sherpa onion one of the 80 plants in my book…see also edimentals.com. There is a lot of this plant in the botanics
A Smilax (asparagus relation) I believe…many have edible shoots
Hemerocallis forrestii has edible shoots, flower buds, flowers and dried flowers. See my book and blog
Hemerocallis forrestii has edible shoots, flower buds, flowers and dried flowers. See my book and blog
Anemone rivularis is used in Nepal
Sanguisorba filiformis – many species in this genus have edible shoots
Roscoea purpurea is a beautiful autumn flowering ornamental and the tubers are apparently eaten in Nepal…but, I haven’t tried..
Couldn’t find the tag for this one, but it looks like Cacalia delphinifolia… see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=6340
Hosta sieboldiana, one of my favourite edimentals and in my book!
Edinburgh has a good collection of Aciphyllas from New Zealand. Maori carrots were tradionally pulled up using a rope to avoid being lacerated by the needle sharp leaves!
Aciphylla or Maori carrots
Aciphylla or Maori carrots
Allium schoenoprasum ssp sibiricum, Siberian Chives (an accession from the Far East)
Patrinias are used in Japan but I haven’t tried yet
Hosta flowers are edible
Balloon flower, Platycodon is cultivated for its edible roots in the Far East
Sedum spectabile, edible leaves and great for the bees
Sedum spectabile, edible leaves and great for the bees
Hemerocallis littorea
Hemerocallis littorea
Another accession of Allium wallichii, Nepal or Sherpa onion, see my blog
Another accession of Allium wallichii, Nepal or Sherpa onion, see my blog
Azorella is actually in the carrot family and has an edible root, but I haven’t tried! From Chile and Argentina.
Azorella is actually in the carrot family and has an edible root, but I haven’t tried! Here you can see the Umbellifer like seed heads on this ground hugging perennial
One of the biscuit roots from North America that has edible roots, used by the Native Americans
Tulbaghia, Society Garlic from South Africa
Patrinias are used in Japan but I haven’t tried yet…P scabiasifolia
Eryngium maritimum, Sea Holly, a native to the UK with edible roots
View of Edinburgh Castle from the rock garden
Rumex scutatus is one of the 80 in my book
Salvia sclarea
More Allium wallichiii
More Allium wallichiii
Another Aralia cordata, Udo from Japan (see my book)
Pachyphragma is a woodlander in the cabbage family and has edible young leaves and flowers
Phytolacca americana (?) is used in North America – edible young shoots, but toxic later including the berries
Devil’s Walking Stick, Aralia elata was in all the supermarkets in Japan (young leaves)
Devil’s Walking Stick, Aralia elata was in all the supermarkets in Japan (young leaves)
Maianthemum racemosum is one of the 80 in my book, a North American woodlander
Babington’s Leek
Ostrich Fern is one of my 80 favourites
Typha (bulrush) or supermarket of the swamps and in my book
Another patch of Ligularia fischeri
Phormium – sweetener (nectar) and fibre plant of the Maori
Monkey Puzzles, edible nuts
Monkey Puzzles, edible nuts, but you need male and female trees
Cyclamen… C. persicum is eaten as a veg in Palestine and elsewhere
Cyclamen… C. persicum is eaten as a veg in Palestine and elsewhere
Yucca filamentosa has edible flowers
Tulbaghia, South Africa’s Society Garlic
I didn’t take many pictures on Sunday’s guided garden tour at the botanical garden in Bergen at Milde, but here are a few! I was very impressed in particular by the Andean vegetables including mauka and maca! Thanks to Heidi Lie Anderson, Bjørn Moe and, in particular, skilled Andean gardener in Bergen, Bodil Oma!
It was also great to have the chance to harvest and share the Gunnera (Nalca) leaf stalk….the verdict was that it was surprisingly good, sweetly acid flavour! Here’s an album of pictures I took of the amazing Nalca food forests of Chiloe Island in Chile (including being shown by a local how to eat it!): http://www.edimentals.com/pictures/index.php?/category/10
See also http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=677
We were very pleased that over 100 people turned up for the Milde edimentals tour and all my heavy load of books were sold out!
Introduction and welcome from the garden’s Heidi Lie Andersen
After we sampled the Gunnera tinctoria from Chile (surprisingly tasty said several who tried!), and Vossakvann (the heirloom Norwegian selection of Angelica archangelica), we moved on to the South American garden where we saw an impressive bed of Mauka (Mirabilis expansa) with edible tubers and leaves!
The MACA (Lepidium peruvianum) also had impressively large roots! We also saw and talked about quinoa, Oca, Madeira vine and Canna edulis and Oca, before finishing with the multiple uses of caraway and, finally, Allium victorialis which has a large naturalised population at Granvin in Hardanger!
After the talk some of us went to Blondehuset in a different part of the garden for refreshments and nearby we found a nice patch of udo (Aralia cordata)
…and there were other edimentals in full flower, this diverse group of Hordalanders posed for me in front of a flowering Devil’s Walking Stick (Fandens spaserstokk) a great forest garden edible (Aralia elata) from the Far East!
Devil’s Walking Stick (Fandens spaserstokk)
Devil’s Walking Stick (Fandens spaserstokk) self-seeded (?) in a rock crack!
Chuño, Andean freeze-dried potatoes!
http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=677
Late flowering Heracleum sibiricum was full of insects including hoverflies…please help with IDs…
Late flowering Heracleum sibiricum was full of insects including hoverflies…please help with IDs…
Late flowering Heracleum sibiricum was full of insects including hoverflies…please help with IDs…
Late flowering Heracleum sibiricum was full of insects including hoverflies…please help with IDs…
Late flowering Heracleum sibiricum was full of insects including hoverflies…please help with IDs…
Late flowering Heracleum sibiricum was full of insects including hoverflies…please help with IDs…
Late flowering Heracleum sibiricum was full of insects including hoverflies…please help with IDs…
Angelica gigas / Korean Angelica / Rødkvann
Hedychium
Hedychium
Pink perennial chicory
Houttuynia cordata, Himalayan water creeper
Houttuynia cordata, Himalayan water creeper
Double Houttuynia cordata, Himalayan water creeper
Double Houttuynia cordata, Himalayan water creeper
Double Houttuynia cordata, Himalayan water creeper
Buckwheat / bokhvede
Winesorrel / Rumex acetosa ssp vinealis
Tagetes and buckwheat
Codonopsis lanceolata
Codonopsis lanceolata
Codonopsis lanceolata
Codonopsis lanceolata
American blueberries
Molopospermum peloponnesiacum seed
Seed of Allium stipitatum (Persian shallot)
Perennial kales!
Perennial kales!
Perennial kales!
Lovely bunch of people on the two tours of my garden today! Forgot to take any pictures during the first tour, so just a couple from the second during the only shower…it had threatened to be a very wet afternoon this morning!!
050916: Added some pictures taken during the first tour by Elin Anita Mosbakk. Thank you!
Tour two in my rain forest garden!
In my rain forest garden…I’m sheltering under my giant Udo!
Quinoa “Stephe” will soon be ripe!
Alexander garlic grown as a wild plant!
Runner beans / stangbønner are now appearing after a long time in flower
Grape climbing into my yew / barlind
Fotograf: Elin Anita Mosbakk (from the first tour).
Fotograf: Elin Anita Mosbakk (from the first tour).
Fotograf: Elin Anita Mosbakk (from the first tour).
Fotograf: Elin Anita Mosbakk (from the first tour).
Fotograf: Elin Anita Mosbakk (from the first tour).
Fotograf: Elin Anita Mosbakk (from the first tour).
Fotograf: Elin Anita Mosbakk (from the first tour). Broad beans intertwined with Hablitzia!
It’s confirmed that I’ll be doing a guided edimentals (=edible ornamentals) walk at the Royal Botanical Garden in Edinburgh’s Harvest Festival at 2 pm on Saturday 17th September (free)!! Hopefully, I’ll have a few books for sale too!
I actually first grew vegetables when I was a student in Edinburgh in the late 70s when I was a student, inspired by local bicycle campaigner Dave du Feu (Spokes) who I met (both with bikes) on a train on the way up to Edinburgh…I remember him telling me about the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA), the organic gardening association and how to grow vegetables intensively on raised beds by planting diagonally… Just look what he started!
See the Facebook event here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1053863641370121/
http://www.rbge.org.uk/whats-on/event-details/4356
Thanks for the visit today, Marius Flak and friends from Chile / Sweden!
Pleasant visit from Hegra bygdekvinnelag* this evening, so distracted I forgot to take any pictures! However, as they left, this view opened up with a “rainbow over Skatval”….a topic that had actually been mentioned during their visit ;)
*Bygdekvinnelag means literally ” farming district women’s club”
Some pictures from Saturday 16th July in my garden and forage on the shoreline below the house!
Participants
Is started raining as the garden tour started, the participants here sheltering under a birch tree, me doing the introduction in the rain!
Wonderful 60+ Allium for lunch
Aiah’s sauteed Scorzonera buds
Collecting beach edibles (and seaweed) for dinner
Collecting beach edibles (and seaweed) for dinner
Daniel’s improvised seaweed composition
Daniel, Søren, and Kåre’s barlotto/ryotto tutti frutti di mare
On the final morning of the Naturplanteskolen visit to Norway, we visited the Ringve botaniske hage in Trondheim. We started with the Renaissance garden, comprising a collection of 123 useful plants mentioned in Norway’s first gardening book, Horticultura, from 1694! We then wandered through the arboretum where mainly coniferous trees are planted geographically around the central pond, representing the Arctic Ocean! We stopped at the pond to talk about one of the world’s most useful plants,known as Supermarket of the Swamps in North America, Bulrush, cattails or dunkjevle! We passed a glade of Mandchurian walnuts (no nuts to be seen this year), then on to a naturalistic planting of Hosta, marvelled at the collection of old perennials, had a quick look at some interesting useful plants in the systematic garden, before finally walking through the “Parken” to the music museum from where we said our goodbyes :( See the picture galelry at the bottom of this page!
In 2002 I made a renaissance salad containing 80 of the plants in this garden at the opening ceremony. Here’s a document showing what was included, more information and the Middle Age recipe used:
Download (PDF, 329KB)
Finally, here’s a little video showing the bulrush / dunkjevle pollen!
The Renaissance Garden at Ringve is a tribute to the first Norwegian book of gardening, published in Trondheim in 1694. Both the geometrical form and the plants in the Renaissance Garden follow guidelines in the book. The division into quarters and symmetrical beds are part of the Renaissance idea that man could master nature. The plants were all useful, and are a mix of vegetables, medicinal plants, herbs, fiber plants, and ornamental plants. The Renaissance Garden holds 123 species or varieties of species. The plant labels give information about the name and the traditional usage of each plant, also in English. A list of the plants´ scientific names is found here: http://www.ntnu.no/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=3c71f8ca-322c-4b20-b403-a28579b587bb&groupId=10476 The first Norwegian book of gardening was called “Horticultura” and was written by Christian Gartner, who was a “city gardener” of Trondheim in the late 1600s. He wrote the book to promote gardening in Mid-Norway at a time when this was considered to be very far north.
Hops / humle are the centrepiece of the garden
Campanula latifolia / giant bellflower / storklokke
Allium fistulosum / welsh onion / pipeløk
Vicia faba / broad beans /bondebønne and Campanula latifolia / giant bellflower / storklokke
Allium x proliferum / / Egyptian onion / luftløk – this was a suprise as my research has only managed to trace these hybrid onions back to 1794, in Germany. Must check if these are mentioned in Horticultura?
Roseroot / rosenrot
Gentiana purpurea / søterot is a rare wild plant in our area and a fantastic plant when in full flower… See http://artskart.artsdatabanken.no/FaneKart.aspx?Date=0,0&LnID=102180&GPND=True&DT=11111&BBOX=-921992,6424201,1960159,7966051&Height=765&Width=1430
Kåre with Gentiana lutea
Cnicus benedictus / Blessed Thistle / Benediktinertistel
Salvia officinalis
Chicory / sikkori
Mustard heavily attacked by diamond back moth (kålmøll)
Garlic / hvitløk
We talked about how the use of the nutritious pollen of bulrush / dunkjevle had been used as a flour to make pollen cakes in all continents!
Edible bulrush /dunkjevle rhizomes…
Juglans mandscurica / Manchurian walnut glade
Mini kiwis with fruit! (Actinidia kolomikta) :)
Ground cover of edible Hostas in the Far East forest area
Oplopanax horridus…a bit dry here for this moisture loving forest plant that can be 3m tall!
The collection of old perennials
Admiring a double sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica)
A double Martagon lily
I was surprised to see Mertensia ciliata here… I hadn’t noticed this before in the old perennials garden…a good perennial vegetable from North America :)
There is also a collection of old perennial herbs…here an old chive / gressløk
An old turnip from mid-Norway
Søren Holt’s favourite herb tea is from this plant, Bergenia cordifolia!
Several people commented on Inula royleana in full flower. This plant is from the Himalaya, is not edible but has been used medicinally.
Platycodon grandiflorus / balloon flower is cultivated in the far east for its edible roots. It seems to grow very well at Ringve. I’ve struggled to overwinter it in Malvik.
A well deserved rest after 4 energetic days!
Rheum alexandrae in seed… do the leaf bracts protect the seed from rain?
Rheum alexandrae in seed… do the leaf bracts protect the seed from rain?
In the park area! Time to go home!
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Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden