No flowers

The trouble with flowering plants is that they spend a lot of time not flowering so for the decorative bit of my garden, I decided to go for some specimens that show off in different ways. This first one is Chenopodium giganteum 'Magentaspreen' that achieves bright purple patches on the stem-end of each leaf. This one is only young but they grow to 1.5m by the end of the summer. The common name of this plant is "Tree Spinach" and you can eat the leaves. It's very easy to grow from seed as it does have flowers but these are "insignificant"

Next, we have red veined Sorrel. I've grow ordinary Sorrel from seed but this pretty version came from a garden centre. It's edible stuff too. You make up a bland potato soup, let it go slightly off the boil and then blend in a handful of these leaves and it's stunning.

Finally, something that looks rather like a weed. I first read about it on the Plants for a Future site where they say "The leaves have a pleasant agreeable flavour with a slight sweetness, they make a very acceptable lettuce substitute." and  importantly "This plant has proved to be almost totally slug-proof, even in a very heavily slug-infested garden."

Reichardia picroides is a native of southern Europe and I had to get seed from Slovakia but I'm giving it a go. Actually, it's supposed to have flowers a bit like dandelions. Somehow, not a surprise.