I thought that this is Malva sylvestris, Common Mallow though it more likely could be a stunted Lavatera arborea (must look at it again this week), growing in one of my neighbour’s roadside planters. This plant seems to offer flowers all year long! The whole plant is edible and soothingly medicinal – if it’s Malva. If it’s a Lavatera then the leaves and flowers are also edible though the medicinal qualities are far less than Mallow.
I believe that this is Slender Speedwell (Veronica filiformis). Its a pretty little plant with forget-me-not style flowers, which is edible and medicinal. The ladybirds were having a field day on it, munching through aphids, not yet killed off by cold weather. Here’s a useful and inspiring blog post about Speedwells, which may be of interest.
And here is one of the easiest and most useful herbs to grow in Amsterdam. Calendula officinalis. You can save the seeds and they’ll reward you handsomely next season, add the flowers to cooking pots (it’s called a pot herb for this reason) for colour and bitterness, make healing oils, ointments, lotions, lip balms, dyes, soaks etc from the leaves and flowers. It’s a magical plant. Here it is still flowering along my street, in another neighbour’s pavement garden pot. If you’d like something very simple to grow and safe (well, within reason of course) then I’d go for Calendula.
Urban Herbology 