A Chocolate Flower Garden
Calorie Free Chocolates Please!
For millions of people, the two most popular gifts they will receive for Valentine’s Day are chocolates and flowers.
As a Guerrilla Gardener and self admitted chocoholic, my research has proved it is possible to have both by planting A Chocolate Flower Garden.
It’s hard to believe that there are plants that are actually supposed to be brown (at last I have an excuse!) and even harder to believe that some of them actually smell like chocolate, however while surfing the internet I came across a company called the Chocolate Flower Farm.
The owner Marie Lincoln started the company 16 years ago and it turns out they are quite famous.
Their claim to fame is based around a garden with the colours and aromas of chocolate and permits you to get your chocolate fix without it going straight to your hips!
For those who don’t like to garden but have a hardcore chocolate addiction they also carry all natural chocolate infused bath and body products, gourmet speciality chocolate food items, chocolate scented candles and too many other chocolate items to list. A chocoholics dream!
Best of all I contacted this company and although they cannot ship plants and tubers they do ship seeds to Canada!
(you can contact them here for more information)
Here are a few plant selections to inspire you to celebrate a calorie free Valentine’s Day by creating a Chocolate Flower Garden:
Chocolate Daisies (Berlandiera lyrata) are said to be the most “chocolatey” smelling of all the chocolate scented plants. The intense chocolate scent of this wildflower would be great for planting along walkways, under windows or anywhere you like to sit for your morning coffee. A night bloomer, the flowers offer up their cocoa scent in the morning and drop their daisy-like petals each day as the temperature rises. The flowers, each the size of a quarter are a beautiful butter yellow colour and if regularly deadheaded will bloom all season. They are deer resistant and apparently the pollinators love the chocolate scented flowers too! Plus Chocolate Daisies are actually a perennial to zone 4 and thanks to some seed acquisitions I made earlier in the year I was lucky enough to add a package of these seeds to my collection.
Fingers crossed that this plant turns out to be everything that it is reputed to be.
Chocolate Cosmos have deep burgundy flowers that smell like rich dark cocoa and they extend their aroma late into the afternoon. I had one of these plants a few years ago and it smelled exactly like cocoa! Unfortunately I did not know that it was a tuber and that I was supposed to lift and store it it like a dahlia to over winter.
Now that I know better I am thinking that I should pair some Chocolate Cosmos with the Chocolate Daisies that I have acquired. Not only would the chocolate coloured cosmos contrast nicely with the butter yellow of the Chocolate Daisies but it would create an all day chocolate aroma.
Chocolate Cosmos are now added to my ever growing want list – check.
Chocolate Lily (Arthropodium strictum) has a wonderful chocolate scent with pink blooms. Make sure to check the Latin name on the chocolate lily you plan to buy. BE SURE TO NEVER buy chocolate lilies with the Latin names Fritillaria biflora or Fritillaria camschatcensis. These species are named for their chocolate-brown coloured flowers and not for their chocolate scent. Planting for colour would be fine except these chocolate varieties have such a horrible smell they are also known as skunk lilies, dirty diaper lilies and outhouse lilies. Definitely not something I would want in my chocolate flower garden!
Chocolate Scented Orchid (Oncidium Sharry Baby) makes a perfect Valentine’s gift for enjoying the rich cocoa aroma indoors. Very easy to grow and it’s not too picky about its growing conditions. Place it on a tray of pebbles with water underneath for humidity, occasionally spray it and let the soil dry out between watering. Very Rare!
Chocolate Soldier Columbine has unusual maroon-brown flowers over a low mound of ferny light-green foliage with a sweet fragrance. Excellent for cutting and is known to be a Guerrilla Garden favourite for harvesting seeds.
Chocolate Beauty Sweet Bell Peppers – sweet bell peppers that are a gorgeous chocolate brown colour.
Chocolate Cherry Tomato -tastes like a cherry tomato, but looks like it’s moulded out of chocolate.
Kissed by Chocolate Delphinium –large white blooms with subtle brushes of chocolate. Very unusual!
Chocolate Sunflower – rich chocolate-burgundy petals surrounding dark chocolate centers. This is a favourite of guerrilla gardeners, children and birds everywhere!
Chocolate Nasturtium –mahogany colour blooms and edible too! It doesn’t taste like chocolate, but adds a “peppery” taste to salads. These also tend to re-seed themselves and have prolific seed harvesting capabilities for any seed bombing project that you may have in mind.
However, these are only a few of the calorie free chocolate flower garden options available.
Don’t wait for someone else to bring you flowers and chocolate this Valentines Day!
As per Non-Rule #6 use Google to search for “chocolate flowers/plants/seeds”, look through those seed catalogues that are piling up by the couch,
or go to your local garden center and hunt down some chocolate plants or seeds so you can create your own chocolate garden.
Note To Self:
Chocolate plants and flowers make a unique Valentine’s gift for any Guerrilla Gardener and who’s to say you shouldn’t give it to yourself!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Guerrilla Garden Adventures
Inspiring Garden Rebels everywhere to make the world a greener, happier and more creative place