Presenting an album of pictures from BG Vienna showing edible plants I found in the collections and talked about during my walk and talk arranged by Arche Noah!
The entrance to the garden
Hosta kikutii var pygmaea
Hosta siebodiana “Elegans”
Scorzonera austriaca in the wild garden
Water leaf or Indian salad (Hydrophyllum)
Osmorhiza occidentalis
Cryptotaenia japonica “Atropurpurea”
Apium (Helioscadium) repens is presumably edible (sometimes classified as a subspecies of Apium nodiflorum)
Bunium bulbocastaneum
Myrrhis odorata (sweet cicely)
Trachystemon orientalis
Peucedanum officinale is the source of a gum!
Elaeagnus angustifolia
Kalimeris incana
Gunnera tinctoria is one of the 80 in my book!
Labelled as Allium oreophilum , which it isn’t, looks like a good form of Allium senescens or hybrid!
Not this either, looks like the great Allium imposter Allium cyathophorum var farreri
Hemerocallis
Senecio cannabifolius…used as a vegetable in the Far East. I’ve lost mine, any chance of a new starter Trond Høy?
Sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), a plant with a multitude of uses…many food uses, medicinal and the leaves have also been used as plates!
Chenopodium bonus-henricus, Albania’s most popular wild foraged edible!
Lilium pomponium, a lily from southern France and north Italy – the bulbs have been used for food!
Allium victorialis grows in the Alps
Meum athamaticum
Syneleisis aconitifolia is in my Japanese foraging book!
Syneleisis aconitifolia is in my Japanese foraging book!
Serratula coronata – I sowed this one for the first time…used for food in Korea..
Crithmum maritimum, death samphire, but perfectly edible!
There was a bed of 6-7 different Angelica species including this one, Angelica purpurascens
Angelica anomala
Angelica gigas
The smallest species I’ve seen, Angelica polymorpha from East Asia
Angelica amurensis
Angelica acutiloba
Angelica anomala
Aster ageratoides
Aster (Eurybia) macrophylla, a Native Americam food plant!
Aster glehnii is used in the Far East
It’s not often I see Aster scaber (see my book) in botanical gardens!
Basella alba and cousin Anredera cordifolia (Madeira vine)
Talinum paniculatum
Viola alba
Siberian pea tree (Caragana) growing an producing masses of small beans in the warmth of Vienna
Ostrich fern growing well in damp soil by a stream
Xanthorrhoea (grass tree or black boy) from Australia was considered as a future crop for sugar in the 19th century
Cornus kousa, an edimental!!
Sedum
Parietaria, edible non-stinging nettle
Laportea canadensis, Canadian wood nettle
Urtica cannabina
Althaea officinalis, Marshmallow
Callirhoe is a great edimental in the Mallow family from North America
Cornus kousa, an edimental!!
Hibiscus trionum
There’s a good collection of edible Sanguisorba species (edible young shoots), most better than overrated S. officinalis (salad burnet). This is Sanguisorba albiflora
Sanguisorba tenuifolia var purpurea
Sanguisorba hakusanensis
Sanguisorba obtusa
Entrance to the administration building where I met the garden’s director!
Next to the entrance to the entrance to the administration building…Host’s Hostas of course!
I was given a tour of the greenhouses by Frank who was also a member of Arche Noah! This included a collection of vanilla species…
The participants of the walk and talk. Thanks to Arche Noah’s Ursula (in front) for organising my visit!
In stark contrast to the diversity of the botanical garden, this is the next door neighbour!
Did you know you could make coffee tea from the leaves of the coffee bush! I finally got round to trying the fresh leaves from my plant as a tea a couple of weeks back and it was really delicious, with a similar taste to coffee berries if you’ve tried them (the red flesh around the seed used to make coffee).
Coffee tea is certainly easier to grow and make at home than coffee coffee …. I’m still saving seed for a brew :)
The genus Hosta is just about my favourite vegetable as you can read in my book Around the World in 80 plants, productive, tasty and perfect for a forest garden as it doesn’t mind deep shade! I did a walk and talk at the Botanischer Garten der Universität Wien as part of my tour organised by Arche Noah in mid-June 2017. To my great surprise, there was a Hosta installation in the garden and a large collection of species Hosta! It turns out that the genus Hosta was named after Austrian botanist Nikolaus Host (1761-1834) and he managed a garden on the site of the botanical garden until his death!
From the garden’s web site: “On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Nikolaus Thomas Host (1761-1834). A group of students of the class for landscape design, under the supervision of the British artist and landscape designer Tony Heywood, is working on a “horticultural installation” for the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna.”
Here’s a series of pictures from the installation “Hosta Superstar” and a long bed of species Hosta!
All Hostas are edible.
This was the highlight of my guided tour of the garden which ended at the Hosta installation.
It was unknown to the garden that Hosta are edible and the director was excited of this new dimension to the garden…perhaps there will be a Hosta tasting next spring!
The Hosta Superstar Installation
On the window of the greenhouse installation there is a list of plants credited to Host (bold), there are many others (non-bold) that turned out to be synonyms!
Mission accomplished! I arrived here in Austria over a week ago! 3 garden tours and two seminars on and I’m now sitting with some porcini pasta and some Austrian beer in Saltzburg before my train back to Vienna and home tomorrow. After 7 hours in Saltzburg, I still haven’t heard any Mozart or The Sound of Music! Thanks to Arche Noah for inviting me
My last gig in Austria was a tour in the young botanical garden in Saltzburg. Despite its youth (from 1986), it had one of the best collection of unusual edibles I’ve seen in a dedicated garden to the world’s cultural plants! Of course the ornamental beds also had a lot of food…
The garden entrance
Right next to the gate was a bed full of edibles like Allium moly, various Lilium species, Dahlia and Camassia
Allium giganteum
The following pictures are from the cultural garden collection
Peltaria alliaceae
Orychophragmus violaceus
Sea kale, Cramb meyeniie maritima
Perennial buckwheat, Fagopyrum cymosum
Hibiscus acetosella (with a pleasant sour taste)
Zingiber mioga, Japanese ginger
Maca, Lepidium meyenii
Canna indica
Gynura crepioides
Plantago coronopus
Altananthera sissoo
And now some other edibles in the garden, Gunnera (probably manicata)…we talked about Nalca, the slighty smaller Chilean Gunnera chilensis
Aralia elata
Polygonum hydropiper, marked poisonous! Really?
Horseradish….apfelkren!
Begonia flowers are edible, this was a demonstration of Begonia breeding
Tom Strubreiter is my host up here in St. Koloman (see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=11483). He picked me up at the station on Thursday and took me up to his mountain farm where he’s doing important work conserving rare breeds of farm animals that are much better adapted to local conditions and that rarely need visits by the vet! He showed me around his amazing ecostructure that he calls his Noah’s Ark that he is constructing … I spent the day botanising in the species rich alpine meadows and swam in the Seewardsee! Couldn’t be better
Tom Strubreiter has worked for preserving traditional old races of farm animals for some 15 years, and is building his very own “Arche” out of local materials including larch and Pinus cembra and using local craftsmen, an impressive ecostructure at around 1,000m! I will send him some Norwegian roof onions, the only part missing!
Seewardsee…..23C in the water, there’s nothing like swimming with yellow water lily maidens in an alpine lake! :)
A few pictures from my first three days in Schiltern and Austrian Seed Savers organisation Arche Noah’s amazing show gardens. The main show gardens are in the village of Schiltern in Langenlois, an important wine growing area, with warm, dry summers and relatively mild winters.
I’m doing a series of talks and garden guided tours this week starting here in Schiltern, then Vienna and finally in the Alps near Salzburg!
…and I got to try one of these broadforks! This one had been handmade for Arche Noah!
Seed art at the gate!
The show gardens are in the grounds of an old cloister..
The sales area has a great selection with many perennial edibles including Crithmum, Angelica dahurica etc.!
Purple mitsuba for sale
Angelica dahurica for sale
Caraway (karve) on sale
Hosta on sale as a perennial vegetable!
Toona sinensis
Sea kale (Crambe maritima)
Hablitzia tamnoides
Curly whirly onions, Allium senescens var glaucum
Crithmum maritimum
Rumex scutatus glaucus
Impressive elderberry with my host Claudia and organiser of my tour! Thank you!!
Bee hive
Library
Great outdoors restaurant
Lunch: risotto with an old grain! Did they make a special effort for me?
Isolation tent!
Perennial rye (from, I think, Tim Peters)
Old fruit trees
The countryside and village…
A demonstration of breeding lettuces
Sea Kale on one of two perennial beds
Asphodeline lutea…edible flowers and the tubers were traditionally cooked and eaten with cooked figs by the ancient Greeks and Romans according to Cornucopia II
Scorzonera for seed
Diplotaxis erucoides (wasabi rocket) has an excellent wasabi like taste
Winterkefe pea is one I’ve grown for several years (originally over winter in my old greenhouse). It originates here at Arche Noah
A row of Hablitzia is growing slowly and is maybe not too happy in the heat… shadier place would probably be better!
Catawissa onion (etasjeløk)
Rumex scutatus glauca
Oxyria digyna, mountain sorrel seems to grow well in the lowlands too!
Nice to see Sideritis syriaca, Greek mountain tea in the herb garden
Arch Noah seed packets in the shop
Allium moly (gul-løk) is from the mountains of Spain and is a great edimental
My talk was on Sunday in the cloister buildings
Typha (cattails / dunkjevle) in the courtyard pond! Supermarket of the swamps!
New friends after the talk..chef Johan Reisinger top left, Wolfgang Palme top right (vegetable researcher at the Horticultural College and Research Institute Schönbrunn, Vienna) and his good lady Angelika Palme who did an excellent job at translating!!
On Monday 12th June, I joined an informative tour of the Arche Noah show gardens lead by the head gardener. The tour was for staff and guides.
Nettle water with perennial kale Ewiger kohl (Eeuwige moes)
Chick peas
Broad beans are difficult to grow due to a number of pests and diseases
Millet for a future drier cilmate
I also visited the seed bank…
Humidity instrument for checking that the humidity is low enough for long term storage
Seeds are both stored in sealed jars…
Seeds are both stored in sealed jars…
Arche Noah are in the course of changing database (Access) as they have outgrown it!
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
