Besides brightening up your garden, many flowers are also edible. Flowers are generally used in cuisine for one of two reasons: to add delicate flavour, or to add colour to your favourite dishes. For best results, flowers should be used as fresh as possible and harvested early in the morning.

Remember not to spray your flowers with pesticides if you will be using them for culinary purposes.

• Blue borage bears pretty star-shaped blue flowers that make a beautiful garnish for desserts or salads. The flowers can also be frozen into ice cubes and used to decorate drinks.
• Nasturtiums have a sweet, peppery flavour and are delicious in salads, pastas and risotto.
• Lavender and rose petals can be infused into ice cream, vinegar, sorbets or jellies.
• Jasmine flowers make a wonderfully calming and fragrant tea.
• Pansies and violas add a sweet, tart flavour to salads.
• Marigold petals can be chopped up and added to butter, cottage cheese, quiche or omelettes.
• Many vegetable and herb flowers are also edible. Try baby marrow flowers or chive flowers.