:: scabiosa ::

The scabiosa (doesn't sound very nice, does it???) or pincushion flower - really good at attracting beneficial insects to the garden, looks lovely and I think I'd like to put it on 2017's cultivation/procurement list!

:: papaver ii ::

From a packet of wildflower seed last Autumn, a variety of pretty, papery poppies have sprung up in different parts of our garden...this might be the most striking version

:: brassica rapa ::

A late evening gardening session to hurriedly plant all the things still hanging about waiting to go in the ground...better late than never!

In the process I pulled out all these zesty, yellow-flowered tatsoi plants the bees were clearly still enjoying...I don't feel so bad since there are so many other plants flowering at this time of the year.

:: cosmos vi ::

So much wind today that it was almost a miracle this cosmos stayed still enough for the photo!

:: calendula v ::

Happ-bee Friday!

:: petroselinum crispum ii ::

 the alluringly-coloured fly sits atop what look like tightly-bunched fists...

...that open slowly, slowly...many days here...

...and then the teeniest of white and yellow parsley (Italian) flowers appear...

:: nigella iii ::

some plants just have the best names - like this one - "love-in-a-mist", or...more plainly 'Nigella' (don't tell Nigella I said that!)

:: brassica oleracea ::

...it is always wondrous to be about in a garden first thing of a day (whatever time that is for you!) and this morning I was enchanted by the tiny waterdrop in the centre of this broccoli flowerhead...

...'flowering crest of the cabbage', is the meaning of the Italian word broccoli, and it is indeed a bunch of tiny flowers on a stubby stalk...

...this was the original choice of a photo of it - alongside some French breakfast radishes and atop a small laundry basket of broadbeans I'd just harvested - but...I think I like my little broccoli with a little rainbow now...what do you think?

(rainbow courtesy of sunshine through the crystal hanging in our kitchen window!)

:: xerochysum brachteatum v ::

I can't decide whether these remind me of a party decoration or one of those woven sunhats...strawflower or everlasting daisy

:: pansy xii ::

Gosh, many more cobwebs being blown away today...and a neighbour's elderflowers are taunting me from across the road, swaying and bending in this wind...come and take as many as you want, they said...

...hmmm...that does mean making up the syrup afterwards...am I feeling that lazy this Sunday? 

YES!

:: papaver ::

...getting up close and personal with the innards of a glorious, bright red poppy - like a whole other world inside there...

:: pansy xi ::

as busy as the pansies proliferating in the backyard today...not proliferating...just doing, doing,doing!

:: pansy x ::

soggy, still and chilly here today...time to declutter the work room...the 'W' room!!

:: pansy ix ::

Another of the sweet, irresistible wee pansy faces popping up all around the clothesline - making hanging the washing a pleasure...and an undeniable 'Spring' flower..

....today I'm feeling the energies of Spring, the waxing sun and the stirring of much sudden growth in the garden, getting out and planting 60 sweetcorn plants and more sunflowers in between long spells resting and reading (for an annoying lurgy has most-inconveniently struck!).

...and I am definitely not feeling the waning energies of Autumn, being celebrated with pumpkins, hunkering down and warming food as is the Northern Hemisphere with their focus on Hallowe'en...

...so it is a weird time for me as we are commercially surrounded by urgings to partake in this 'Hallowe'en' festival...and I found myself creating a little cute homemade treat for the inevitable 'trick or treaters' that have indeed come by this evening...

Give me bunnies and chocolate eggs, Spring flowers and the hopes and wishes of the warm Summer months to come, don't give me goblins, witches and the goobeldy-gook of Hallowe'en!!

:: xerochysum brachteatum iv ::

Strawflowers or fried egg flowers?! Somehow I get the giggles when I look at this pair, which have been giving me an eyeful for quite some time now...LOL!

:: lupinus ii ::

Of all the hundreds of blue lupins planted in a 10 square metre bed in our vegetable gardens this Winter/Spring, there bloomed one stunning pink one!

:: borago officinalis ii ::

A fulfilling day spent in brilliant Spring sunshine today - got to make the most of the weather when it is so up and down! 

First a drive out to the violin repairer in the country, which was utterly refreshing and so great to remember actually how close the country is to the city...

...picking up a dead possum off the side of the road (fresh and relatively tidily slipped into a bag, not smelling at all!) as a bonus for our hen run composting - great blood and bone to add to the mix...

...a library visit, replenishing the various genre of books it feels good to have about...

...an almost never lunch of spelt pikelets and cups of tea and reading said books in a lingering fashion at the dining table...

...and then four glorious hours in the garden in magnificent sunshine - YES!!!

Finally the borage or starflower is blooming - out of their spiky bud cases and hanging ethereally under the apricot tree. 

I always love to find out what uses plants have, other than what seems obvious to me. In the case of borage, it is used in the kitchen in other countries - boiled and then sauteed with garlic as a vegetable in the Aragon and Navarra regions of Spain, as a green sauce in Germany and as the traditional ravioli pasta filling in Liguria in Italy - wonderful, and when I'm feeling a little more brave, I may just try that too...borage for courage, they say...!!

 

:: pansy viii ::

Definitely a pansy explosion happening around here - this one is not one of the self-seeded varieties - it is an 'antique' pansy - such pretty colours going on...

:: pansy vi ::

There has been a pansy explosion here - from just a couple of punnets planted two Summers ago by Miss P, we now have an abundance of very pretty floaty pansy blooms proliferating the area between the vegetable garden and the clothes line...that's a self-seeding I really don't mind!

:: erysimum ii ::

Another of my favourite flowers is flushing with fresh blooms under the pear tree at the bottom of the garden this Spring - the humble wallflower. They really are such a delicious flower in their modest, compact, unobtrustive form and seductive, spicy scent - I smile whenever I spy them out - and they manage to hang on tenaciously to what are seemingly the most precarious of spots to grow - quite literally in the cracks of walls. Ours have it good as they are in a flower border tended by Miss P and occasionally even receive a helping of hen-'enriched' compost.

The County Ball by Winthrop Mackworth Praed, 1820

Interestingly, the term 'wallflower' - which describes generally introverted personality types who still seek out social events and then choose how much to interact - was first used in the poem above in 1820.