Edible flowers are growing in popularity when it comes to kitchen gardens. No longer just for fine dining, they're adding colour and character to cocktails, cakes, ice cubes, and savoury dishes alike. Whether you want to impress guests or simply brighten your meals, edible flowers are a fragrant, fabulous touch. Just be sure you only eat flowers that definitely haven't been sprayed with garden chemicals. If in doubt, it's better to stay safe and choose an alternative.

Try these for starters...

Edible flowers you might already be growing:
You'd be surprised how many edible blooms are already growing in your garden. Rose petals, for example, are not just beautifully fragrant - they're edible too. Choose highly scented varieties for the best flavour, especially when crystallised and used on cakes.
Lavender: With its calming scent and sweet floral notes, it pairs well with desserts and syrups. Violas and pansies are another popular choice, with their mild taste and striking colours making them perfect for salads, sweets, or even sandwiches.

Nasturtiums: Those bold orange, yellow or red petals have a watercress-like peppery kick, and both the leaves and flowers can be eaten. If you grow herbs like rosemary, thyme, or chives, their flowers are edible too and great for garnishing savoury dishes or baking into breads.

Edible flowers worth adding:
If you're ready to expand your edible garden, there are plenty of easy-to-grow options. Borage produces star-shaped blue blooms that taste faintly of cucumber. Perfect frozen in ice cubes for summer drinks. Elderflowers have a musky sweetness that make them great for cordials and desserts.

Calendula has vibrant orange petals with a mild, tangy flavour, ideal for adding colour to salads. Hollyhocks and cornflowers offer visual drama with a light, fresh taste, particularly when used as garnishes. Hollyhocks and cornflowers offer visual drama with a light, fresh taste, particularly when used as garnishes.

Not sure where to begin? Start a dedicated edible flower patch. Choose a sunny spot and mix a few reliable favourites like violas, nasturtiums, borage and calendula. These thrive in borders, containers, or window boxes.

Straight from the veg patch:

Many of your everyday vegetables also offer edible blooms. Courgettes, squash and pumpkin flowers are large, golden and perfect for stuffing or folding into omelettes. Pea flowers bring a delicate, sweet flavour that's delicious in salads or as a garnish for fish. Likewise, the blossoms of broad beans and runner beans add subtle pea-like notes to dishes. Try sprinkling fennel flowers into soups for a hint of aniseed, or add citrus blossoms to stir-fries for a floral, lemony lift.

Whether you're harvesting familiar flowers or growing something new, edible blooms are a feast for the eyes and the palate. Give it a go. Your garden (and your taste buds) will thank you.

Top 5 Jobs:

1. By now, the leaves of tulips, daffodils and other spring-flowering bulbs should have turned yellow and wilted. This means they've finished feeding the bulbs for next year's blooms, so it's safe to cut them down to the base. Avoid removing green foliage too early, as it can reduce flowering next season.

2. With warmer weather and moist soil, weeds can quickly take hold and compete with crops for nutrients and water. Use a hoe on dry days to disrupt young weed seedlings between rows and hand-weed carefully around plants to avoid damaging their roots.

3. Early June is a perfect time to support fast-growing plants like delphiniums, lupins and peonies. Installing canes or support rings now will prevent stems from flopping or snapping under the weight of blooms later in the season.

4. It's not too late to pot up hanging baskets with edible trailing tomatoes, strawberries or herbs like thyme and basil. Use good-quality compost with added slow-release fertiliser and hang them in a sunny, sheltered position for tasty summer pickings.

5. As the weather warms up, garden birds rely on clean water for drinking and bathing. Check water levels daily and clean the baths weekly to keep them fresh and disease-free.

Focus Plant: Alliums

With their tall, wiry stems topped by globe-shaped blooms, alliums create a dramatic vertical accent just as spring turns to summer. The spherical flower heads burst into rich shades of purple, lilac, pink and white, each one made up of dozens of tiny star-shaped florets.

A magnet for bees and other pollinators, they thrive in full sun and well-drained soil and are ideal for borders, gravel gardens, and modern planting schemes. A sheltered spot is best. Once established, they're drought-tolerant and low-maintenance and many varieties will return year after year with little effort. Try Allium 'Globemaster' with their 20cm violet globes for truly impressive blooms. For a softer palette, Allium 'Mount Everest' produces elegant white heads, while Allium 'Purple Sensation' brings bold magenta colour perfect for mass planting.

Fun fact: Alliums are part of the onion family but shouldn't be planted next to edible onions, as they share pests and diseases which can spread more easily when grown together.

Did You Know?

• Some common garden vegetables can switch flower types. Cucumbers, courgettes and other squash family plants often grow both male and female flowers but when under stress, they may temporarily produce only male blooms. This allows the plant to conserve energy until it's ready to support fruiting.

• In Yorkshire's famous Rhubarb Triangle, forced rhubarb is grown in total darkness and harvested by candlelight to keep the stems tender and sweet. The sudden stretch for light in the warm sheds causes the stalks to grow so rapidly that you can hear them creaking and popping.

• Bat guano (bat droppings) has long been valued as a powerful natural fertiliser. Rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, it boosts leaf growth and strengthens plants. Favoured by Victorian gardeners, it's used today for improving soil health and flower production.

• Hydrangeas are an allergy-friendly option. Unlike wind-pollinated plants, their pollen is sticky and heavy, meaning it doesn't travel far. This makes them less likely to trigger hay fever and is a great choice for colourful, low-allergen planting.