Chocolate Garden

This IS quilt related - can you guess how before you get to the end of this post???

Last night, after dinner at the Hole in the Wall, my friend Jacquie, co-owner extraordinaire, showed me pictures of their latest honey harvest and asked if it had been me who told her of my wish for a chocolate garden. It was!

I think the wish started when the spring catalogs had plants that were either chocolate colored or flavored. Then I found the Chocolate Flower Farm which further cemented my wish. Since I can't decide where to plant my chocolate flower garden yet, I've just begun collecting plants that I can later move to the new bed. Most chocolate plants seem to be brown or dark maroon in color but some are black or dark purple. There are chocolate annuals, perrenials and vegetables (oh wait, I think they are fruit since they have seeds).

My most obvious and official start to the chocolate gardent, is this Chocolate Mint. It has the traditional 4-sided stem like mint altho it's a chocolate color. The green leaf tastes minty with something else but not really a chocolate taste. Hey, it's the name that's important, huh?!

LEFT: This sedum also fits the color bill altho it seems to grow a little wilder and spindlier than my green sedum that is in the back left of this picture.
RIGHT: I have this coral bells (I think it's called licorice). It started the summer a much darker color (dark chocolate?) that has now faded to this lighter (milky chocolate?) color.

Then, there is this cactus. Or is it a succulant? From the top it looks like a hens-n-chick but from the side you can see it's on a stem. I bought the smallest (translate to cheapest) this nursery had but the largest specimen they had available was on a 6-8 inch stem and the "flower" was maybe 10 inches across. I am not sure if I want this plant inside or outside yet but I couldn't pass up such an interesting plant.

 This morning I picked 3 Black Beauty peppers from my garden. They start out green but turn this dark eggplanty purple color. Can't wait to see what color they are inside.

These are off topic but look - my hens-n-chicks had a rooster! I actually have 4 different plants that did this so maybe it's the hot weather we've been having.

Does anyone else have chocolate flowers they can suggest? I'm talking everyday plants that fill the color or name or speciality plants that fit.  TIA.

So... did you guess the quilt relation to this post? My quilt guild's annual "picnic" was held at the Hole in the Wall with a very yummy menu, quilt mystery to solve and our usual show-n-tell.