Gloriosa Daisy

I suppose the name Gloriosa Daisy might make a botanist cringe but, for the gardener, it is a handy designation. These are not daisies, but Rudbeckia that have been hybridized and have finally settled into a big yellow/orange daisy, about two feet tall (60 cm) and biennial. Its flowers, however, are quite unpredictable, and there is a great deal of diversity, both in the colour and the markings on the flowers.

Annual poppies - 2015

Every summer we grow various annual poppies. Some of the seeds are bought, but mostly they are collected in the garden the previous summer. As the plants hybridize on their own, the flowers we end up with can be quite different from year to year. Some can be absent one year and reappear the next. This was the case this year for Papaver somniferum var. paeoniiflorum which came up everywhere while we had few of them last year.

Pots on the move

It is self evident that an important advantage of growing plants in pots is that they can be moved around. In every garden, there are spots which, at  least part of the time, are drab, if not boring. Pots are very useful to deal with such spots. Moving them to various places allows you not only to brighten a dull corner, but also to see your own garden in a completely different light.

Eyes bigger than stomach

I was walking by the pond when I noticed that a goldfish had died and was floating among the water plants. I bent down to pick it up with the intentiion of putting it on the compost heap but, as I got closer, the dead fish quickly sank back down into the water!