Loring’s Lei

Loring has been asking me to make a necklace out of flowers with her for quite some time.  I always promise, but don’t follow through.  Yesterday I dropped what I was doing and said, “Let’s make that lei”.

We collected a bowl full of our edible jasmine flowers.  They have a perfect little hole in them when they’re picked.  I threaded a needle for Loring and let her do the rest.  She had no trouble sewing the flowers into a necklace all by herself.

Check out the Crafting Chicks blog for an adorable lei project that can be done with straws and paper with kids.

The jasminum sambac flowers are perfect for stringing a homemade lei. This is the ‘Maid of Orleans’ variety of jasmine.

Loring is sewing her lei and singing gleefully.  Although, she was really concentrating when I took the photo.

Loring and her homemade Lei.

Sometimes we really do need to stop and smell the flowers!

Come grow with us!

To Eat or Not to Eat, That is the Question

Our morning harvest of fresh picked jasmine flowers.

Whenever we talk about Jasmine in our yard, we are referring to Jasminum sambac…the edible jasmines.  There are many gorgeous varieties.  We have two of them in our garden and they are blooming profusely right now.  The more flowers we pick off them, the more the plant gives us.  So every day we pick all the flowers and bring them in the house.  The smell of jasmine floats through our house daily like a summer dream.

That's a 'Grand Duke of Tuscany' flower on the top left and two 'Maid of Orleans' flowers on the bottom.

The ‘Maid of Orleans’ variety is used to make jasmine tea.  The blooms are added to the tea to give it a light scent.  I’m thinking that a jasmine creme brulee would be the cat’s meow.

Grand Duke of Tuscany variety of jasmine

The  ‘Grand Duke of Tuscany’ looks like a small rose.  The petals don’t fall off this flower when it ages, they just turn brown.

'Grand Duke of Tuscany' about to bloom.

The obviously intoxicating aroma of jasmine.

Smells so good you'll want to eat it...and you can!

The edible jasmines are a lovely addition to our garden.  I’m still hunting for the ‘Mali Chat’ and ‘Mysore Mulli’ varieties.  The hunt will continue until I find them.  Isn’t the hunt part of the fun? I regularly check  TopTropicals to see what they have in stock. 

Remember that there are many varieties of jasmine that are highly poisonous.

Come grow with us!