Discover chocolate and coffee coloured plants for a unique French garden aesthetic

It’s September. Our gardens have survived the summer, so it may be an odd time to ask you to consider brown flowers for your garden – wasn’t that what we spent the last few months trying to avoid? There are, however, many ‘chocolate’ and ‘coffee’ plants worth considering. Some smell of chocolate, some have rich coloured leaves or velvety petals with a hint of brown and others have magnificent blooms with a hint of coffee. 

My first selection in the chocolate box is a cosmos, C. atrosanguineus but it is not like its annual cousins. In my garden, it is quite a short-lived perennial. In North Yorkshire I could not keep it over winter at all. Here in Southwest France, I have to lift and pot it up to have any chance of seeing it next spring. 

Is it worth the faff? Yes! Its dahlia-like blooms are a deep burgundy colour and it really does have a delicious chocolatey scent. The second chocolate plant I fell for was a rose I saw at RHS Chelsea. My younger daughter surprised my mum and I with tickets to the show at Christmas 2016. Rosa Hot Chocolate tempted me in the Floral Marquee. To be honest, it’s never quite lived up to the very floriferous examples I saw there, but it associates so well with the rich brown iris in the Hot Bed in late April and early May. 

The iris came from a Troc’Plantes (plant swap event) so I have no idea of the variety but the colour is a wonderful rich chestnut brown. Both Lepage Vivaces  and Les Senteurs du Quercy sell I. Dutch Chocolate,which looks very similar. I have another - also from the troc - which is an eggy yellow with streaks of chocolate. 

Like Christine Logan, our featured garden opener this month, I am a huge fan of penstemons. I used to try to find new varieties beyond what was locally available. I discovered the wonderfully named Penstemon Whippleanus Chocolate Drop. It flourished for two summers and then sadly disappeared. Jardin des Alpes (jardindesalpes.fr) list it but it is currently out of stock. I would love to replace it as it is a very handsome plant with tall stems and bell-shaped (in French they are called clochette) deepest purple to burgundy flowers. 

Christine also told me she has a chocolate ‘clematis' – with clover type leaves and flowers which are a fabulous bronze colour. I believe it is an akebi or chocolate vine (akebia quinata). Native to Japan, it grows to 10metres and the chocolate-scented flowers are followed by sausage-shaped pods which contain an edible sweet pulp, a bit like dragonfruit. The pods themselves have a slightly bitter flavour and in Japan they are stuffed with meat and deep-fried. 

Delightful dahlias

The Café au Lait dahlias burst onto the market a few years ago and there are now lots of colour options. In my opinion, the original grand crème one is the best: huge, creamy blooms, with pointed petals emanating from a brown tinged centre. Mine has been flowering at least five summers; the tubers have been divided and shared. 

The colour changes very slightly. I keep some in pots, dry them off after the first frosts and then store them under cover before repotting in spring. The ones in the garden I just mulch with a mound of dry leaves and they cope despite our heavy clay, occasional very hard frosts and the predation of slugs and snails. It’s better than when I bothered to lift and store in wooden trays and ALL the tubers were eaten by rodents.

D. Chocolate Sundae is a simple, single flowered dahlia with very dark petals and a bright yellow central boss. Unlike the Café au Laits, it is very good for pollinators. D. Dreamy Hot Chocolate also has dark chocolate leaves but I have failed to find a French supplier – don’t despair though, as Dutch suppliers will ship to France without problem. Order this winter to enjoy next summer.

Violas and larger flowered pansies which flower through the winter can come in beautiful brown and russet tones. Viola cornuta Irish Molly is probably the most widely available, popping up in supermarkets and garden centres from October, but there are others. They look fabulous with deep orange tulips like Ballerina, Orange Angelique or Orange Princess and mauve crocus or blue scillas. You will find brown tones amongst the tiny early Iris reticulata too – see Mars Landing and Orange Glow.

Adding chocolate and coffee leaved plants to winter and spring pots is also a good idea as the dark leaves provide a perfect foil to pale spring bulbs. Heucheras, like H. Chocolate Ruffles, H. Chocolate Lime, H. Café Olé, and H. Arabica World Caffe, will all do well in pots. I would move them to a shadier position before summer starts. 

H. Arabica World Caffe was developed in France by Jean-Marc Bernard in the Vosges mountains. New hardy geraniums with similarly chocolate leaves including G. Chocolate Candy are currently in production in France and will be available this autumn. I got a sneak preview in the UK in June. They are handsome plants producing neat mounds of dark leaves with masses of flower above – Candy is pink but I saw others with bright blue flowers like the classic G. Rozanne. G.maculatum Espresso has bigger flowers than other G. maculatum and is great for ground cover under trees.

Whatever you pick, these chocolates won’t add calories or keep you awake at night, so you can indulge yourselves.