If you could only have 3 plants in the garden, what would they be, and why would you choose them?
That’s the tricky question we pose to each of the guests on the Scotland Grows Show. It is so hard for any gardener to narrow their favourite plants to just three! We may say that we would have different favourite plants in different seasons, but when put on the spot and asked to narrow it down it is very interesting to hear which three plants our podcast guests chose. Read on for the top 3 choices from Janice Clyne, food scientist, gut health enthusiast, and foraging expert.
“I absolutely love lavender as a plant, it’s so uplifting because it’s just reminiscent of summer days. It smells incredible, and for me, gardening is not just about what things look like, it’s what they smell like. I pick it, bring it in, and it just smells incredible. I add lavender to my kombucha.
“I do realise that sometimes it’s a bit damp and a bit wet here, and it doesn’t do so well but I usually have lavender in tubs because I just love it, it’s such a beautiful plant. I also love the fact that when the flowers come up, the bees love it, that buzzing and the connection with the bees and nature, I do love lavender.
“Another one I do absolutely love is nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) as it comes in all so many amazing colours and you get variegated ones and you get plain ones. They literally grow anywhere, you don’t have to do anything, and they’re so bright and vibrant and beautiful. You can trail them, you can you can have them growing up, you can eat the leaves, you can eat the flowers, you can pickle the seeds, and it self seeds everywhere.
“You can use the flowers in pesto as well, they’re actually quite spicy and they look absolutely beautiful on the plate. One year I did have quite big nasturtium leaves and I thought I’d be very fancy so I used the nasturtium leaf as a plate, and it was quite cool because you can just eat the plate, no washing up, so that ticks all the boxes.
“The other incredible thing about nasturtium is big nasturtium leaves are actually antimicrobial, so they’re incredible for using as a little lid to top your ferments in the summer. So if you grow nasturtium then you’ve got another thing that’s fantastic for fermenting.
“I absolutely love hellebores. I have a gorgeous one in the garden and it’s the most beautiful flower, I could look at it hours. It is gorgeous, and it comes up at a time where other things are not flowering. And I do think the lovely thing about garden is the seasonality, where there’s always something lovely to look at.
“I also do love azaleas and have many planted in the rockery. They do really well here because they like acidic soil and the colours are just beautiful and it’s heralding the spring.”
Catch up with the rest of Janice’s chat in the Scotland Grows Show.