Investment of flowers

I have decided to infuse the garden with many more flowers this year for two separate reasons. Firstly, I thought it would be lovely to see (hopefully) many more flowers than there have been in previous years. Secondly, I am hoping that new flowers will attract many more insects some of which could, if I’m lucky, be butterflies.

So far the flowers that I have chosen in my quest for improving the garden are: The Peace Poppy which are otherwise called Papaver Rheas Bridal White – this was a fairly common wild white poppy hundreds of years ago that is also the White Flanders Poppy and is recognised as a tribute to peace. Sadly, I can honestly declare that I have never seen one of these beautiful poppies either growing wild or even in a garden, nor is there another person I know who has witnessed the site of these pure symbols of joy growing where they belong. If I am successful then maybe a few will spread out away from my garden on the breeze to live in the open countryside once more. It would be certainly tempting to sprinkle a few seeds when I visit a new area of Worcestershire. (Perhaps we should all be tempted to grow a new wild flower each year in our gardens to help to re-introduce some of the old favourites that have been lost over time through previous generations carelessness.)

Amongst the flowers I am hoping will germinate is a biennial (these are planted one year to flower the following year – some, when a gardener is truly blessed even last a full five years before they die), a short stocky soft furry leafed foxglove called ‘Foxglove Silver Cub.’ To my new collection of plants to trial growing I have some seeds for Purple Creeping Thyme, Common Thyme, Bergamot, Ladybird Poppies Papaver Commutatum, Caucasian Scarlet Poppy, Peony Poppies Papaveer Paeoniflorum Huge Doubles Mixed Colours, and lastly some wild strawberries. This mix of varieties is to hopefully encourage more bees to visit daily. All I have to do now when the year warms up a little is to plant them and keep my fingers crossed that a small percentage of them will grow and form a lovely show of blooms. (They are all scatter seeds so need now expertise to grow – they just require planting after a shower of rain.) Always remember that anyone can grow poppies and foxgloves and they are the two flowers that enhance any little plot of land.

The wild Flanders Field poppies red associated with remembrance of the fallen and white for the peace that has been so bravely fought for. It is important to grow both of these and appreciate what they stand for.