I am pushing the boundaries of HOA. The rules say no vegetables in the front yard. This is what I started this year.
Canna lilies just coming up. This who area was overshadowed by Tithonia which I removed just today. The bulbs and roots are edible. Grown in Australia as Queensland Arrowroot. The seeds are ground and added to tortillas in Mexico. In rural areas of India, Canna is used in the production of an alcoholic drink called raksi. Canna is a distant relative of Heliconia and bananas. The leaves are today commonly used to wrap tamales.
Down below two large Sea Holly plants are coming along. Both the immature leaves and the roots of sea holly are edible. The shoots are sometimes grown using the blanching technique and served as an asparagus substitute. The roots, boiled or roasted, taste like chestnuts.
In between the Sea Holly I believe (kind of lost track) are Cockscomb. Cockscomb is a popular ingredient in many parts of the world, all the way from Africa to Indonesia and India. Its stem, leaves and flowers are used for stews, soups and as sides to meat and poultry. It can be eaten as a snack, in dressings or smoothies, or sauteed with salt and pepper as a side dish.
Also in there is liriope. According to PFAF it is edible and medicinal though with low scores in both. Lilyturf is said to have the root cooked as well as candied and used medicinally. The roots sometimes have a fleshy, tuberous part near their tip. I will take PFAF’s word for it. But in a survival scenario I guess its good to also have in the garden.
The bush is Texas Sage, which can have the leaves dried and used to prepare a medicinal tea. They say it has antimicrobial properties and commonly used for decongestant, cough remedy and difficulty sleeping. They also seem to have studies on it as to if it promotes good liver health. I have to take their word on it as I have not used it yet.
Not to be confused with Canna lily are the Calla lily.
Calla lily is definitely not recommended for consumption as it is high in oxalates. Stick to the big Canna lily.
Coleus is definitely not edible and can cause intestinal upset. But I hid behind the Coleus some of my Strawberry seedlings. Let’s see if the HOA notices 
Monkey Grass is not listed as poisonous but it is also not listed as edible or medicinal. So I just let it grow and do its thing.
The Blue Foss Flower (ageratum) is starting to go to seed and all parts of the plant are poisonous and may be harmful to pets or humans if ingested. It is a pretty plant and when the flowers are fresh quite pretty so I will try to collect seed and regrow this next year.
The African Daisy is about to flower. The petals are said to be edible and the stems and leaves tolerable and some folks add them to their salads. They are said to not be poisonous to pets.
Lambs ear is edible and in some parts of the world it is used as a herb. It is said to taste like a combination of apples and pineapples for those of you more adventurous to add it to your routine.
Oil from Lambs ear is said to be antiseptic, anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory and used for ear pain, salves made with beeswax used by some for hemorrhoid relief, and teas and tinctures can be made.
Like catnip, catmint is edible. Culinary herbalists typically use it in sauces, teas, salads and soups. No effect on cats as with catnip.
Yarrow is edible. The leaves can be used in almost any dish as a vegetable, added to soups and sauces, or simply boiled and simmered in butter as a side dish. The flowering tops can be sprinkled on salads and dishes as a condiment or decoration. Yarrow leaves and flowers can be dried and ground into a spice. Yarrow leaves can be used fresh in a salad.
Popular in European folk medicine, yarrow contains flavonoids, plant-based chemicals that increase saliva and stomach acid to help improve digestion. Yarrow may also relax smooth muscle in the intestine and uterus, which can relieve stomach and menstrual cramps.
Daylilies are a popular staple in Asian cuisine and they are used both fresh and dried. Every part of the daylily plant is edible: you can pluck the young shoots, boil the tubers like potatoes, or spruce up your salads with its bright orange petals.
Not all lily are edible, so make sure you can identify which ones are first.
Many people don’t realize that the common garden flower, Hollyhock, is completely edible – root, leaves and blossoms.
The seed, root, stem, leaf, and flower are used as medicine. Hollyhock is used for pain, stomach ulcers, wound healing, diabetes, and many other conditions all without scientific evidence to support it yet.
It took me three years to find creeping thyme seeds because I was always trying to buy them in bulk to use as a ground cover. I finally found a tiny packet of seeds and just bought it and started my first creeping thyme this year.
Creeping thyme is a vining plant that creates an excellent ground cover for rock and herb gardens. It can be used as both as a culinary or medicinal herb. It attracts beneficial insects
Dahlia tubers can be eaten raw or cooked. It is best to peel them, as the flavor of the skin is often unpleasant. The flavor of dahlia tubers changes with storage. When first harvested, they are crisp and fairly bland, with a taste something like celery.
Marigold is one of the popular edible flowers which has been used from ancient times. What other parts of the Marigold are edible.
Common wormwood (Artemisia absinthium ) is a perennial herb used in the alcoholic beverages absinthe and vermouth. The bitter-tasting plant has been used for centuries for medicinal purposes to reduce pain and swelling and to treat digestion problems, intestinal worms, and skin infections.
Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) is an herb used in the alcoholic drinks vermouth and absinthe. Its oil contains the chemical thujone, which most medical pages will err on the safe side and say may be poisonous.
The thujone in wormwood oil excites the central nervous system and can cause seizures and other adverse effects. Other chemicals in wormwood might decrease swelling.
Tobacco is highly nutritious but in its raw state contains nicotine (a natural pesticide spray you can make soaking dried tobacco leaves in water) which negates any nutritional properties it has. Even if someone tried to eat the leaves in their raw state, they would get sick from nicotine poisoning. That’s why when European colonists were starving to death, they didn’t try turning their tobacco crops into salads.
The oldest archaeological evidence of tobacco residue in a smoke pipe dates back 3000 years ago—around the same time people in modern Alabama, where the pipe was found, began cultivating foods like sunflower and squash.
It has been chewed, smoked or snorted by people for its dopamine-boosting effects in the brain. Though the nutritional benefits of tobacco have been known for years, it’s still an untapped resource—largely thanks to the this stigma attached to the crop.
Properly ripened Lantana berries are edible and create jams and jellies. However, unripe green berries are mildly toxic to humans. The plant should in general be considered toxic to livestock.
Like hostas and kousa dogwoods, zinnias have turned out to be edible. The flowers are eaten by gardeners in the know; however, the reviews are that they lean to the bitter side of things.
By law when I removed the front shade tree that was growing into the house I have to replace it with another tree. So I chose the Ornamental Peppermint Peach. The photograph is not mine but will show what the flowers look like.
Mathematically no two flowers will ever be identical but will be completely unique mixtures of white, pink and red tones. It does make fruit, but so far I’ve picked them off as the tree has just been planted and is about 10 feet tall unlike the one in the first photograph above I am growing mine out to full height which should stop at 20 feet tall and not grow into my house.
The Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) is a perennial plant that can grow up to 3 m tall and is native to Mexico and Central Africa. You can find this flower in shades of red, yellow, and orange. The leaves and flowers are edible and can be used for garnishing.
[no photo, various rose mallows]
Some of the mallow plants have edible uses. I have lost track of which ones I planted so I am not using them for anything other than growing in difficult areas I had trying to establish plants.
For the Swamp Rose Mallow as an example, the leaf buds and young leaves of the swamp rose mallow can be consumed as well as the flowers. The leaf buds can be cooked or eaten raw. The young leaves have a mild taste with a gelatinous consistency that can be added to salads.
Wood conch mushrooms are not considered edible. In traditional Chinese medicines they have been used to treat indigestion, alleviate pain and reduce heat. In my garden they convert the cellulose in buried logs I accepted as part of the deliveries of multiple arborist woodchips for my garden into new soil over time.
Famous mushroom enthusiast Paul Stamets has hunted the forests looking for powerful allies to fight anthrax, and that tapping into some of the antibiotical systems that these mushrooms produce would be a logical first step. Some of his mushroom discoveries were though to be a Smallpox Defense as well.
In general the proper identification of mushrooms into poisonous and non poisonous is a decently in depth study and even the experts make mistakes every once in a while. So I just have a healthy respect for them in the garden for there ultimate powers as “The Teeth of The Forrest”. Eating up cellulose matter and converting it back to new soils.
A quick one from the backyard, every part of the Moringa tree is edible. The leaves, pods, seeds, flowers, even its root.
Although some might say its not super looking, some have looked to the Moringa tree as a potential super food. I am too cold in the winters for the tree to stay perennial so mine die to the ground but readily grow back from the root stock the following year.
Wow. I didn’t expect this reply to turn into a tour of my front flower garden. But looking at everything I am growing I am even surprised at myself at how much I am thumbing the HOAs nose in it, and all the silly people who write such silly rules when most everything they think is a pretty ornamental flower is really a food or medicinal plant. Next year I might even (gasp) plant a bronze fennel out front! 
Not every plant and flower in the front has made it to this post. I had just randomly taken photographs this morning and had no intention of posting them here.
I am happy with my front flower garden for year one results. 
