Terra's Garden
Monthly Column by Terra Hangen

Chocolate and no calories; how can this be? Just add the scent and color of chocolate to your garden by searching out some of the plants I describe, and don’t forget to add cocoa bean hulls.

The first  secret is to mulch with cocoa bean hulls. Whenever your local plant nursery has cocoa bean hulls for sale, treat yourself and buy a bag or two. The mulch hulls are a soft chocolaty color, and best of all, they have the scent of cocoa. If you toss the hulls to the base of your plants by hand, your hands will smell wonderful. For a week afterward you will catch the scent of sweets as you enter your garden, particularly after you water, and if you use these hulls as mulch for all of your patio container plants, when you step outside to the patio, there's that wonderful aroma greeting you.  

Chocolate enthusiasts will enjoy growing a vine from Japan called "Chocolate vine" (Akebia quinata). The leaves are attractive and the flowers are tiny and brownish purple and not very noticeable but their glory is that they emit a white chocolate scent that connoisseurs love. This vine grows in sun and in part shade, and may need to be controlled since it can be an aggressive climber, twining to 15-20 feet. The Chocolate vine is deciduous, but evergreen in mild climates. Zones 5-8. 

Another delightful plant is the Sarcococca bush (S. ruscifolia). This slow-growing bush is a bit of a hard sell, because the bush and its leaves are quite ordinary looking. The feature which lends this bush grandeur is the potent perfume of its very tiny white flowers: the noble waft of chocolate.  Zones 7-9. 

The Geranium Chocolate Peppermint (Pelargonium hyb.) is a sturdy plant that thrives in gardens and in containers outdoors, in sun or partial shade and offers garden visitors a delicious chocolate peppermint scent. The gray green leaves are splashed with chocolate color and the flowers are pink. Gentle rain, hot sun or a light touch will release the fragrance from the leaves. This plant thrives in zones 3-11, and over winters in zones 8-10. For colder climates bring the potted plant inside in mid-autumn. 

For the flower with a color that most resembles dark rich chocolate consider the Chocolate Cosmos (Cosmos astrosanguineus). The flowers have a velvety mahogany look and a rich chocolate fragrance. These flowers don't resemble the annuals that are so popular. Chocolate Cosmos are tuberous perennials that can be dug and stored in winter in colder zones. Recommended for zones 7-10. This gorgeous cut flower is native to Mexico, and is sometimes called the Black Cosmos.  

Seeds for these plants are found in all the large plant company catalogs, at your local plant stores, and there is a small business “Chocolate Flower Farm” in Langley, Washington (360 221-4464, www.chocolateflowerfarm.com) that sells starter seed packs. 

Bring chocolate to your garden and savor chocolate fragrance that is calorie free! Plant some of these guilt-free chocolate beauties, add cocoa hulls for mulch, and delight in your delicious garden. 
 

Please contact the author at thekilns@excite.com with comments and requests for garden topics to cover in my future articles.

About the Author: For more of Terra Hangen's garden tidbits, fun garden photos of her black squirrel friend, tips for beginning writers, and a glimpse into her own journey as a writer visit her blog at http://terragarden.blogspot.com. She is celebrating the publication of her first book, Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts, written with 6 Christian writer friends, and scheduled for publication Oct. 2008 by Leafwood Publishers.

Flower photos on this page are from Wikipedia.com. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the flower photos on this page under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".