Every so often a word arrives that names something gardeners were already doing. 'Edimentals' is this year's: plants that have purpose as well as being pretty, edible enough for the plate and good-looking enough that you would grow them anyway. We covered why they are having a moment in our spring trends edit. This is the how.
The two jobs an edimental can do
Some earn their border spot with structure. A globe artichoke is a metre of silver architecture before it ever thinks about dinner. Bronze fennel does the soft towering thing all summer. Rhubarb brings those glowing red stems, and sea kale sits in a border like a blue-grey sculpture that happens to be a vegetable.
Others earn it with charm. Calendula, borage, nasturtium and viola will fill any gap with colour and end up scattered over salads. Chives flower generously and feed you all year. Wild strawberries edge a bed with white flowers and ankle-height fruit for whoever finds it first.
What to grow in NZ
For structure: globe artichokes, bronze fennel, rhubarb, sea kale.
For colour: calendula, borage, nasturtium, viola, chives, chicory if you want the surprise of that blue.
For the herb layer: rosemary, thyme and sage, drought-hardy and never not useful.
For the long game: asparagus, sorrel, perennial leeks and walking onions, an elderflower on the boundary, hazel or crab apple if you are hedging.
Most of these are perennials with deep roots, which is why they shrug off a dry February that flattens the lettuce.
Where to start
Not with a redesign. Start by finding what is already edible in your borders, there is usually more than you think. Then make a few pockets: fennel or an artichoke at the edge of an existing bed, thyme and rosemary walked into the gravel and the dry spots where nothing else is happy. Sow the annual flowers into any spare ground in spring.
Then change how you harvest. Edimentals are for grazing, a leaf here, a flower there, fruit on the way past, rather than clearing a crop in one go. If you never pick a thing, they are still beautiful plants, which is rather the point.
The dinner party planners among you have been doing this all along. A potager is edimentals with a seating chart.
