Earth Day Edibles

Home grown is better

Earth Day is Friday, April 22^nd so here’s a little food for thought: it’s a fact that as soon as fruits and vegetables are picked they start losing nutrients. Once harvested, they sit in transit for several days en route to the supermarket shelves.

Fennel—an edible and a pollinator

Another way of celebrating Earth Day everyday is by building a supporting ecosystem for our wild pollinators. Their habitat is fast disappearing, but we can sustain it by choosing plants carefully to provide food and shelter to bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, and moths.

Any selections from our Zoo’s Best Pollinator series will do the trick, and since we’ve talked about vegetable gardens today we’ll focus on fennel. This tasty herb has an anise-like flavor and is great in salads, plus it’s a host plant for black swallowtail butterflies.

Fennel flower heads 

Feathery fennel is not relegated to the vegetable or herb garden—it adds great texture to many landscape designs. The plant can get quite tall so it makes a dramatic vertical accent. We like to pair this fragrant herb with ‘Beauty Yellow’ argyranthemum—another butterfly favorite.

All of our Zoo’s Best Pollinator varieties are available in the one quart pot. A portion of the purchase price is donated to the Cincinnati Zoo to help fund their community and botanical programs.

Go Reds: Salvia ‘Lady in Red’

Baseball season is here at last and that makes us think of one color: Cincinnati Red. ‘Lady in Red’ has got team spirit—look at these vibrant blooms. They blaze against the dark green foliage in spring and keep coming until after the World Series is over—well into November.

In addition to its fortunate color, this Texas sage stands up to sun and heat, and also performs well in part shade. Normal rainfall is usually all that’s necessary so it’s fairly easy to grow. Plants reach around 16–24 inches tall.

‘Lady in Red’ is renowned for attracting butterflies and hummingbirds with its nectar-rich blooms. Blue salvias pair well with the bright red—try it with ‘Black & Blue’ or ‘Playin’ the Blues™’ from our Zoo’s Best Pollinator Program.

We grow this variety in the 6-inch pot.