Flower Garden Ideas

This has been much more frustrating research than I expected and I tend to trust people's info on here more than most of the internet.  

I'm looking to make an edible flower garden in my front yard, preferably perennial (zone 6b/7a) and low maintenance.  Taste isn't a concern since everyone is different but a warning is fine so I might plant them separately and decide if I can handle it or not.  I have yellow and ditch lilies to start and I like that almost all of it is edible.  But will ditch lilies just overrun all flowers or can some be companions?  Or maybe I should just keep my flower gardens individualized with daylilies here, tulips there and so on.  I wanted a daylily garden but it seems there is a lot of controversy if some are edible or not- besides the orange one and Green Dean wrote "The only other daylily that has become naturalized somewhat in North American is Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus (lil-ee-oh-as-foh-DEL-us) which is the yellow version, similar in appearance and wrongly called H. Flava. The Michigan State University Department of Horticulture says H. Iilioasphodelus is edible. Blame them not me if it is not" (https://www.eattheweeds.com/daylily-just-cloning-around-2/#google_vignette).  Due to all this I'd prefer things that you all eat.  I know tulips were ate during WWII and apparently have double the calories of potatoes but they don't really spread so I'd be afraid the ditch lilies would overrun them.  And with so many varieties I look up to check if ALL or 'what varieties' are edible but it's hard to find concrete knowledge.  I have enough room to plant many flower gardens so if you have an edible combination that is just flowers or leaves or underground only or whatever, I'm interested.  

The edible daylily cultivated in Asia is Hemerocallis citrina, not H. fulva. You may try preparing and cooking H. fulva the same way but it will lack the characteristic sour taste of edible daylily.

Other plants that bother offer pretty flowers and edible parts are: ginger, tiger lily, canna, passion flower, chive, breadseed poppy, and all kinds of herbs.

I love flower gardens and I love edible flower gardens even more.

Pictures are worth a 1000 words:









From this thread:

https://permies.com/t/43954/Edible-Flowers

I have eaten squash blossoms and nasturtium.

I feel it would also be good to plant things that go with edible flowers such as strawberries, lettuce, etc.

- You could consider nasturtiums, although not perennial it is a prolific self seeder as long as you do not pick up all the seeds for pickling!  The leaves and flowers are edible
- Calendula, again, an annual but self seeder
- Sunflowers, as you know you can eat the seeds but petals are edible as well as unopened flower heads (use like an artichoke)
- Hostas, all of the plant is edible, but then slugs just adore it.
- As a perennial ground cover I just love the siberian purslane (Claytonia siberica), delicious leaves and pretty pink flowers that will spread quite happily but easy to remove if taking over
- Colombine (Aquilegia vulgaris) leaves and flowers are edible
- King's spear (Asphodeline lutea) flowers are delicious and cooked roots also
- Great Solomon's seal (polygonatumbiflorum) prefers shade but has great edible shoots in the spring cooked like asparagus

These are my favorites but you can have borage, violets, roses, lavender, mallows, etc.  Of course chives have delicious flowers too an can look stunning in a flower bed as many other alliums as well as artichokes..

Good luck!

The hope is to use flowers to get people into permaculture a bit more.  Why put out a flower garden and not get some free food at the same time?  I've heard some of them taste amazing such as a fruity taste.  Anyone know of a vanilla or sugar tasting flower lol.  

Wow, Anne, those look amazing.  Those might be too pretty, it'd be hard to eat them lol.  

I grow passion flower, chives, sunflowers, hostas, borage, roses, lavender, and mallows.  I'm growing about 5 different perennial onions and I loved the Egyptian walking onion blooms.  Hope the pictures didn't over glorify them lol.

I'm getting into the herbs more this year.  Creeping thyme, thyme, sage, mint and so on- all are at least biennials (mostly perennials) that have a chance to be here for a long time in my region.  

I never heard of the siberian purslane but I had to look it up and that is a big winner to me.  I'll try to find some seeds.  I swear that no matter how much I look into these things there is always something awesome I missed somehow.  

I hope to get camas, dog tooth lilies, and I have prairie turnips due to utility and looks too.  

All the cold tender ones are out (lazy gardening) but I really like the tiger lilies, breadseed poppies, calendulas.  The King's Spear is perfect for me.  I've been checking out the nasturtiums and one said they were a great companion (especially for brassicas and I have kale everywhere) so it seems like a match made in heaven.  Colombine had some controversy with edibility so I might leave that alone and maybe the Solomon's Seal but I love shade plants so I'll have to research that one more to finalize a decision.  

Thank you for the suggestions.

Lavender, bronze leaf fennel, camomile and sweet woodruff are some more edible flowers/decorative plants that you can eat too.
Yarrow, bee balm and oregano work well as flowers and make teas. I tend to treat my sages as small flowering shrubs. After a year or 2 they put out lots of pretty flowers.

Thanks Dian; I was literally about to go plant my sage and was wondering where to put it so it is going a little closer to the front now.  I have lavender and bee balm.  I never knew that about oregano and a hardy perennial in my zone and those are beautiful flowers, great suggestion.  I have too many fennel already (I got the full package so it has a bulb, seeds, and greens) but I'll put that down on my list as a possible future plant (can you ever really have too many useful, beautiful plants lol).  Have you ever grown the Roman Chamomile as a ground cover?  Just wondering if it did well and if you had to weed a lot- I refuse to become a slave to weeding lol.  Sweet woodruff- "Full shade", is that your experience?  That would be awesome but I learnt to take the internet's word a bit below people with personal experience.  I noticed Yarrow has a LOT of colors.  Do you grow many different colors and do you eat them all?  I'll research if no one has an answer to hopefully find something out.  But awesome suggestions!  I guess I just grouped things into food, herbs then flowers and never even thought oregano or sage would also have attractive features.  It blows my mind, why don't people grow these things instead or along with but whatever?

I have not tried the camomile.
I had yellow and white yarrow. The yellow was much more vigorous, it was a big clump that was not a fast spreader but held on. The white died out. I never got to using either of them.
The sweet woodruff was full shade for me but a bit aggressive in its spreading. I think it was starting to overpower the hostas a bit.
Canadian ginger is another nice full shade one but it is pretty delicate and there may be issues with eating it for those without Indigenous genetics. (and knowledge of how to use it safely for food/medicine) I have not tried it that way but the scent is lovely. If my transplants survive, I'm trying for perfume.
There are so many food plants that are super striking garden plants that I also don't understand why so few people do edible gardens!
If you can handle the thorns and spreading ( or want to effectively block off an area in a decorative way) rugosa roses are hardy, productive, beautiful and flower most of the season. They smell great too. I prefer the white.
For decorative greenery, cardoon is incredible. I understand the flowers are great too. I just moved to the edge of its zone so I haven't tried it yet, but I saw it in a friends garden and it's impressive. ( artichoke too, if you are high enough zone to have them survive)
Another big and showy green is lovage. So useful in the kitchen, easy to grow and solid yet slow to spread. I've had flower spikes from it come close to 7' so it fills in the back of a bed really well. The flowers look much like dill, so not especially pretty to some people, but it's a winner for me.

I find it a bit odd how many people only do flowers or food but not both. I love flowers AND food! I also aim to have the flowers cover as much of the season as possible so that pollinators have a full season food supply. That helps the production of everything. Perennials are always first choice but I will do annuals like: dill, nasturtiums and borage. I'm trying sunflowers this year too.

Benjamin, lilies are toxic to pets.  I've heard if they even brush up against them they run the risk of being exposed to them.  People bring them indoors at Easter, like Tiger lilies, Oriental lilies, and it's very dangerous.  I do grow daylilies but I don't let pets into the garden because I want the birds to come and get the bugs.

We lost a cat when it ate a succulent houseplant, and I blame myself for that.

Herbs have flowers, so check into that.  

Cristo, I'm so sorry you lost your cat.  I've lost a few dogs and I'm sometimes bothered to think of saying goodbye to my current sweetheart.  I have to walk her so she can't get into anything I don't want her to but thank you so much for the warning.

I'll look into the Canadian ginger; the roses are out for now but maybe later as a section filler (probably along the road front).  The cardoon is awesome looking.  I'll admit I'm a fan of some of the thistles (bull I think with the purple deathtops).  My great uncle wasn't too happy that I let it go and now they are here and there to say the least.  
I have seeds for the globe artichoke and lovage which I tried to grow last year but it didn't take.  
I grow a few annuals like dill, borage, sunflowers, red amaranth (people love how it looks) and I has nasturtium seeds (and less ornamental ones too like sorghum and so on).

I plant lots of flowers in my veggie garden. Everything planted in the veggies garden is eatable.  I plant marigolds, nasturtiums, petunias, zinnias, cosmos, borage, Alyssa, lavender, geranium, pansy, bachelor buttons, hollyhocks, calendula, and chamomile. I also let carrots and cilantro flower.
By the end of the summer my garden is wild and beautiful.
One of my raised beds is rainbow chard and alyssum. Is one of my favorite.