Surprise moments

I got a surprise today when I went out to have a look at the gardening my housekeeper had done in lieu of vacuuming yesterday and discovered this mass on poppies. They are proper Anzac poppies and look so beautiful. They are got a lot taller than the others and the blue cornflowers are just starting to flower around them. They aren't perhaps in the right place given the wildflower effect but they are still stunning.

The roses are also beginning their dazzling show although the hot weather today has meant that they are already beginning to blow. I need to get out with some more fertiliser and the secataurs to dead head them.

Picking daisies...the garden

One of my resolutions, if you could call them that, for having a better quality of life is to take the moments to appreciate the garden. Because there is usually something beautiful to find there.



This past weekend I was faced with the annual decision about the iris that grows along the front of one of the borders. I think it probably started at the base of the tree and has spread. I really need to take them out and maybe move them but they seem to flower just as I get my spring gardening burst and I can't bear to disturb them. They are such a beautiful purple blue - a colour it is hard for the camera to capture.

The motivating factor this year is all the annuals I planted behind them. I'm feeling particularly pleased that the poppies have taken so well in that spot. One of my many failings as a gardener is that I make emotional choices about what I plant. Poppies are one of my favorite flowers from the time I was about five years old. We were living in Oteramika (about half an hour out of Invercargill) and I can remember watching the poppies out the window while I was sick in bed. I liked the combination of the bright colours, their dark heart and the papery texture of their petals. The first time I tried to grow them in our previous house they were all stolen, but I've had more success here. This one isn't standing tall and hasn't got a dark centre but it's still beautiful and looks like the first of many. Poppies are a real picking daisies flower that you have to stop and appreciate in the moment as they dont last long.

As well as the poppies the other flowers that always find a home in my garden are pansies.
Like poppies I can still remember when I first decided that pansies were beautiful flowers. I was only about three years old and was playing in the garden of our house in Rawene when I stopped to admire the pansies in a border. I've only just realised they have a dark centre too - maybe this is some deep Fruedian thought.
I should have planted more of these pansies in this spot ... I have scattered the contents of the punnet all over the garden.