Gardening Topic for July 2007
My Chocolate Garden

Provided by the Western Massachusetts Master Gardener Association
www.wmassmastergardeners.org.

I love Chocolate!

I love gardening!

I love that I can combine the two!

I can’t forget my first and forever love, Larry. I asked him to pick up some extra peppers plants for our vegetable garden; I. He bought me chocolate peppers! He did not know I had purchased chocolate tomato plants. They do not taste like chocolate but are supposed to look like milk chocolate. ‘Chocolate Cherry’, ‘Black Prince’, and ‘Black Krim’ are the varieties I’m trying.

My oldest son James loves plant too!! He found an orchid ‘Sharry Baby’ that surprise… smells like chocolate. It bloomed for Mother’s Day and is preparing to bloom again. It is a houseplant that happily sits on a windowsill in my living room.

Of course I have Chocolate mint that was contained for many years in a hollow concrete chimney block, but has now jumped into the lawn and other places. When my nephew Danny visited as a young boy he would always run over to the herb garden and nibble. I’ve grown pelogoriums (Scented geraniums) chocolate mint and peppermint. They are not edible but provide fragrance to my home or as you brush by in the garden.

Cosmos atrosanguineus (Chocolate Cosmos) is an annual in our area. It grows from tubers, the seeds are sterile. I have mine in a pot near my door so I can smell the scent of chocolate as I come and go. I’m hoping to over winter the tubers inside this year. The flowers are a deep burgundy a beautiful rich color.

Digitalis parviflora 'Milk Chocolate"

This year I’m trying Berandiera lyrata (Chocolate Daisy).  It is a perennial for the front of the border, small yellow flowers with brown centers emits its scent in the evening. Nicotiana ‘Hot Chocolate” was introduced in 2005 by Blue Meadow Farm Nursery in Massachusetts. This lovely Nicotiana grows 3'-4' tall, is multi-branching and has an abundance of pendulous green tubes opening to chocolate. Readily self-sows. Says it is slug, snail & deer resistant but no one told the slugs that I think are perforating the leaves. I’m interested in seeing Digitalis (Foxglove) ‘Milk Chocolate’ in bloom. This has brown to rusty brown flowers.

I’m looking forward to my chocolate garden this summer and expanding it in future years. Scented plants are a great way to add a new dimension to your garden.

Sharry Baby

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Provided by the Western Massachusetts Master Gardener Association
www.wmassmastergardeners.org