Ornamental plants that are edible...Edimentals are culinary plants, including Allium and Hibiscus. Humans have been cultivating plants for over 12,000 years and in that time, someone, somewhere, has tasted almost every single plant.
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Acorus calamus 'Variegatus'
Item #: 767
Zones: 4a to 9b
Dormancy: Winter
Height: 36" tall
Culture: Sun to Part Sun
Origin: Europe
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $21.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Acorus gramineus 'Ogon'
Item #: 369
Zones: 5a to 9b
Dormancy: Evergreen
Height: 12" tall
Culture: Part Sun to Light Shade
Origin: China, Japan
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $13.60Regular priceUnit price per$17.00Sale price $13.60Sale -
Adiantum capillus-veneris 'Bermuda Run'
Item #: 9016
Zones: 7b to 10b, at least
Dormancy: Winter
Height: 10" tall
Culture: Part Sun to Light Shade
Origin: Bermuda
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $19.00Regular priceUnit price per
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Agastache 'Blue Fortune'
Item #: 3209
Zones: 3a to 9b
Dormancy: Winter
Height: 36" tall
Culture: Sun
Origin: United States Hybrid
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $17.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Sold outAgave americana 'Marshmallow Cream'
Item #: 7869
Zones: 9a to 10b, guessing
Dormancy: Evergreen
Height: 60" tall
Culture: Sun
Origin: Mexico
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $31.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Agave havardiana
Item #: 5007
Zones: 5a to 9b
Dormancy: Evergreen
Height: 20" tall
Culture: Sun
Origin: Mexico, United States
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $27.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Sold outAgave havardiana 'Big Bend Giant'
Item #: 15007
Zones: 7b to 10b, guessing
Dormancy: Evergreen
Height: 48" tall
Culture: Sun
Origin: United States
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $35.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Agave parryi 'Border Guard'
Item #: 2948
Zones: 7b to 9b, possibly colder
Dormancy: Evergreen
Height: 24" tall
Culture: Sun
Origin: United States
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $78.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Agave parryi 'J.C. Raulston'
Item #: 8152
Zones: 7a to 9b, possibly colder
Dormancy: Evergreen
Height: 24" tall
Culture: Sun
Origin: United States
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $29.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Agave parryi ssp. huachucensis 'Excelsior'
Item #: 7868
Zones: 7b to 9b, possibly colder
Dormancy: Evergreen
Height: 6" tall
Culture: Sun
Origin: Mexico, United States
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $38.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Agave parryi ssp. huachucensis 'Wakefield'
Item #: 12370
Zones: 6a to 8b, at least
Dormancy: Evergreen
Height: 24" tall
Culture: Sun
Origin: United States
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $28.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Agave parryi ssp. truncata
Item #: 5247
Zones: 8a to 9b, at least
Dormancy: Evergreen
Height: 18" tall
Culture: Sun
Origin: Mexico
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $20.00Regular priceUnit price per$25.00Sale price $20.00Sale -
Agave parryi ssp. truncata 'Bed of Nails'
Item #: 2949
Zones: 8a to 9b, guessing
Dormancy: Evergreen
Height: 2" tall
Culture: Sun to Part Sun
Origin: United States
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $29.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Agave x utahveyana 'Wikieup'
Item #: 16581
Zones: 5a to 7b
Dormancy: Evergreen
Height: 15" tall
Culture: Sun
Origin: United States
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $35.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Ajuga reptans 'Texas Tough'
Item #: 12990
Zones: 3a to 9b, at least
Dormancy: Evergreen
Height: 4" tall
Culture: Sun to Light Shade
Origin: Europe
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $17.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Allium kiiense
Item #: 3352
Zones: 5a to 9b, at least
Dormancy: Evergreen
Height: 6" tall
Culture: Sun to Part Sun
Origin: Japan
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $19.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Allium 'Millenium'
Item #: 5466
Zones: 5a to 8b, at least
Dormancy: Winter
Height: 12" tall
Culture: Sun
Origin: Hybrid
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $17.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Sold outAlocasia 'Portodora'
Item #: 3654
Zones: 7b to 10b
Dormancy: Winter
Height: 96" tall
Culture: Sun to Part Sun
Origin: Hybrid
Pot Size: 2 qt. (1.9 L)
Regular price $26.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Alocasia wentii
Item #: 2967
Zones: 7b to 10b
Dormancy: Winter
Height: 36" tall
Culture: Part Sun to Light Shade
Origin: New Guinea
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $25.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Alstroemeria 'Golden Tiara' PPAF
Item #: 17264
Zones: 6a to 9b
Dormancy: Winter
Height: 45" tall
Culture: Sun to Part Sun
Origin: Hybrid
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $27.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Alstroemeria 'Koice'
Item #: 9113
Zones: 6a to 9b
Dormancy: Winter
Height: 40" tall
Culture: Sun to Part Sun
Origin: Hybrid
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $26.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Alstroemeria 'Princess Fabiana' PP 17,991
Item #: 9555
Zones: 6a to 8b, at least
Dormancy: Winter
Height: 10" tall
Culture: Sun to Part Sun
Origin: Hybrid
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $26.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Sold outAlstroemeria 'The Third Harmonic'
Item #: 4160
Zones: 6a to 9b, at least
Dormancy: Winter
Height: 48" tall
Culture: Sun to Part Sun
Origin: Hybrid
Pot Size: 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $26.00Regular priceUnit price per -
Amorphophallus x konbus 'Glow Light'
Item #: 15754
Zones: 6a to 10b
Dormancy: Winter, Spring
Height: 40" tall
Culture: Part Sun to Light Shade
Origin: Hybrid
Pot Size: Bare Root / 3.5" pot (24 fl. oz/0.7 L)
Regular price $75.00Regular priceUnit price per
More Information About Edimentals
The results weren't always pretty, but these intrepid tasters discovered an amazing variety of culinary plants that also happen to look great in the landscape. By the strict definition, an edimental is a vegetable (leaf, root, stem) that you eat, but not a fruit, seed, herb, leaf, or any part that you make tea or alcohol from. However, for our purposes, we are going to define a culinary plant as any plant that you can eat, including herbs and spices, fruits, seeds, as well as any plant part that can be used to make tea or can be fermented into spirits.
Of course not every culinary plant is as tasty as a turnip, and some garden perennials require quite a bit of processing (cooking, pickling, etc.) to be made edible, but the adventurous perennial gardener can greatly expand their palette if they are inclined to. Included in our list are plants that can be eaten raw, plants that require cooking to remove toxic or distasteful compounds, plants that are popular with cultures outside of the US, plants that were popular edibles in the past, subsistence crops (plants that take a lot of effort to prepare but provide only a few calories) and famine crops (plants that have distasteful flavors or textures but are be eaten when times are tough).
When growing edimentals in the perennial garden, it is important to know which plant part to eat. People can eat almost any plant part including roots, bulbs (corms, rhizomes, tubers), stems, twigs, bark, pith, stem hearts (cortex), immature or mature leaves, leaf petioles, fruits, flower buds, flowers, nectar, pollen, seeds, or seed oil. In preparing our list of culinary plants we consulted many sources but relied heavily on the "Plants for a Future" website (www.pfaf.org) as a reference to the edibility rating of our plants. They also provide brief preparation guidelines and notes on toxicity. Disclaimer - we have not eaten most of these plants and advise caution and plenty of research before eating any plant in these lists...remember, here at PDN, we grow perennial plants for their looks, not their taste. When you finish your research and are looking for where to buy culinary plants for your perennial garden, we hope you will check out our culinary plant list.