I have not heard one way or the other about the safety of zinnias so it would probably be best to avoid them.



Carnation flowers (dianthus) are safe for herbivores to eat as are roses, hibiscus, and nasturtium. Nasturtium leaves are also safe to eat (peppery taste). Some marigold flowers are also edible but make sure they are 'pot marigolds' (i.e. calendula) and not 'french marigolds' (tagetes)... the tagetes species of marigolds are not safe.



Some other edible flowers are apple tree blossoms, bee balm/bergamot, sunflower, mints, sage, squash/pumpkin, clover, and chicory. Common weeds such as dandelion, plantain and pigweed/lambsquarter are edible though usually just the leaves are used, but dandelions do have a significant flower large enough to be worth using.



However, it is important that any edible flowers you may wish to use as treats for pets be personally home grown plants and not those purchased from a florist/flower shops or garden centers as those are typically laced with various pesticide and other chemical residues. Any wild collected weeds should be taken only from your yard or other places where you can be guaranteed they were not sprayed with herbicides, pesticides or other poisons. It's also a good idea to keep up with your neighbors if they are known to treat their yards as the residues from spraying will often carry on the wind into your yard. I always avoid for a few weeks the sections of my yard that abutt a neighbor's yard when they treat their lawns just to be safe. It's amusing really... our untreated lawn has hardly any dandlions compared to the infested lawns that are treated. Our secrect? just use a garden spike to pop out a dandelion plant or two out of the ground by the root tap every day or so to feed to the guinea pig .
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PHWyvern

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