Secret Garden

Inventing remarkable yet simple bouquets

words: Lynsey Johnston | illustration: Claire Le Moing

Bouquets can be poetic inspiration tapping into all our senses season to season. Did you know many fruits, herbs and vegetable flowers can be used to enhance a bouquet with their fragrances, textures and unique shapes? Growing these bouquet ingredients in your own secret garden will provide ever-changing floral splendor while you learn to fill your garden with multiple-purpose plants. Get creative and invent your own remarkable bouquets.

Think Outside the Rose Garden

The best flowers for bouquets have long and sturdy stems, but the most uniquely beautiful bouquets are created by using interesting edibles and finding ways to incorporate plants already growing in your yard.

Incorporate these herbs and vegetable flowers in your one-of-a-kind bouquets:

❧ Dill

❧ Elderberry flowers

❧ Chives, common or garlic

❧ Variegated pineapple mint

❧ Basil, such as Blue Spice

❧ Common or variegated sage

❧ Amaranth, such as Velvet Curtains

❧ Chicory (any variety flowers in year 2)

❧ Overwintered Brassicas, such as lacinato kale

❧ Okra, such as Okinawa Pink or Alabama Red

Foraged Fillers

❧ Woody shrub cuttings from landscape prunings of lilac, hydrangea, boxwood, holly, ninebark

❧ Invasive species you can feel good about cutting: autumn olive and Asian bush honeysuckle

❧ Prunings from flowering apple or stone fruit trees

❧ Pussy willow cuttings

❧ Elderberry blooms

Harvesting Tips:

❧ Use clean snips or scissors to harvest. Clean snips with alcohol to prevent the spread of disease.

❧ Harvest in the early morning or evening to prevent wilting.

❧ Harvest 12- to 15-inch stems.

❧ Bring a vessel filled with water to immediatelysubmerge the stems.

Arranging Tip:

❧ Remove any leaves that will be submerged in vase water.

❧ Use a product like Floralife Flower Food to extend the life of your cut flowers, or make your own extender with ¼ teaspoon of bleach per quart of vase water.

Bouquet Blooms

❧ Dill—Used in Ayurvedic medicines and loved by pollinators.

❧ Zinnia “Zinderella”—Best beginner flower. Long blooming and loved by butterflies.

❧ Cock’s Comb—Flowers, leaves and stems are edible and can be used to create natural dyes.

❧ Hyacinth Bean Pods—Both pods and flowers make a beautiful addition to a bouquet.

❧ Blue False Indigo—Excellent option for heavy wet clay soil. “Australis” is an Indiana perennial native.

❧ Dahlia—Edible tubers. Shorter versions work well in pots.

Peaceful & Practical Edible Gardens was born from the combined love of gardening, food and design.

Founded by Lynsey

Johnston, P&P reimagines how we source our food, while maintaining beautiful and bountiful landscapes. Lynsey is fascinated by the possibility that food can grow anywhere, that a few seeds can provide enough food for multiple families and that a deeper understanding of plants and nature has the power to change our lives.

P&P is active in the community, teaching folks how to responsibly create and care for their gardens, build spaces and grow healthy food. They have a keen focus on caring for the earth, centering ethical principles of permaculture and educating the community. P&P works with home gardeners and community gardens in the Indianapolis area, and serves clients on a national scale through virtual support. Their services include edible garden design, installation and maintenance, and workshops and coaching.

Do you want to reconnect with nature and redesign your space, while growing your own healthy food?

Learn more at PeacefulandPracticalGardens.com

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@peacefulpracticalgardens

And in case you are wondering: Yes, lime trees can grow in Central Indiana.