A Passion for a Plethora of Poppies, Part 2: Growing tips

Sarah O, another blogger who lives in Nova Scotia, asked me in a comment how I managed to get Icelandic poppies to cooperate in our clay soil. Hence the several posts on poppy types and growing requirements. There have also been a couple of questions in comments since then, so I'll try to answer those as well.

Growing poppies has always been easy for me. Some years ago I bought potted Icelandic and alpine poppies in the spring and transplanted them in, and they have done the rest, seeding themselves replacements each year. They are classified by growers such as Thompson and Morgan as hardy biennials, meaning they take two years to come to flower. Although I’ll often tuck in a new plant or two each year just to make sure I have a host of colours, mostly I rely on the current plants to ensure their own success. They are not terribly fussy except that they demand good drainage, and so they tend to do best in the front garden or in one of the two raised beds out back which has the better drainage. They will often bloom themselves into exhaustion, but not until well into autumn, especially if you do deadhead them.


The annual poppies (R. rhoeas and P. somniferum) are basically everywhere around our property, which is the way I like it. There's usually a huge flush of bloom, but because of some seeds germinating later in the season, some plants being especially prolific, and just good luck, we have P. rhoeas poppies flowering until the end of the growing season. The poppy in the top photo was blooming in late October.

All poppies in the Papaver species will take full sun to part shade. Most of ours are shaded at least part of the day, either from buildings or because of trees and shrubs. If you give them 4-6 hours of direct sun a day (I'm guessing based on what's shaded when here), they'll do just fine. They'll take more shade, but don't tend to get as large or flower as prolifically. The meconopsis also like some shade in their day, and they will NOT take a lot of heat. Hence they do well here, because on those few hot days we have, the plants are shaded by the hottest part of the day. We also get a bounty of rain and fog to keep the humidity up where they want it.

I don't overfertilize plants. Most of the beds get some seaweed meal, some mushroom compost and some regular compost worked in around them in the spring, and that's it. It seems to work just fine, wouldn't you say?


The annual poppies were here in great profusion when we moved here ten years ago, and I’ve just added to the fun. Certain colours present themselves in certain areas, and some years there are more than others, but there are usually all kinds of them around the garden. I do collect seed, mix it all together, and fling it in various beds around the yard, and they take it from there.


Annual poppies resent transplanting so they’re best seeded where you want them, or where they choose to seed themselves.. Rake the area where you plan to plant them, mix the seeds with a little sand, and cast that out on the ground. Pat them in a little if you wish, make sure the soil is moist, and then mind your business. They'll do the rest. The main thing is to give them that good drainage that they want. My understanding is to seed them in spring or autumn, and not during the heat of summer, especially if you come from a hot-summer area. But I don’t, so I can’t confirm that. I know that some years we’ve had poppy seedlings emerge in October and early November because there’s been no frost. But there are still always lots the following year.

If you have massive germination (and you will if they're happy), you probably should thin the seedlings out, so as to get more large plants and large blooms. But here's what I find with the breadseed poppies. They will grow and flower regardless of the size of the plant. I've had poppy seedlings 6 inches tall, with poppies on them the size of quarters. Sometimes I do thin them a little, but because they're so scattered in amongst all kinds of other plants, some of the seedlings DO tend to get naturally shaded out. And sometimes I just let them all be, so that I do have them in all possible sizes. I only collect seed from the very biggest and hardiest plants; I tag the ones I want with fluorescent-coloured marking tape, and then go around collecting the seeds when the pods are ready (they'll be brown and you'll hear the seeds rattling around inside the pod.) You need to watch carefully, though, because one day they aren't ready and the next day they are, and if there's a wind--they'll have scattered themselves for you.


Back in about 1999 or 2000, I bought a package of P. orientale seeds, the Pizzicato mix, and seeded them inside. When they were big enough, I transplanted them out into a bed I was building in the back garden, and left them to themselves. Nine or ten years later, they are STILL performing for me every June, in shades of coral, orange, and delectable hot pink. And some of them are huge. I’ve never moved or bothered them since putting them in, and even though that bed is a bit iffy in the winter, apparently they get adequate drainage that they continue to flourish.

Now, they only bloom once, and as anyone whose grown them know, the foliage of oriental poppies usually dies down once the flowering is over, and that can leave a gap in your border or bed. What to plant there instead? Mine are in a highly mixed garden, with a host of deciduous shrubs, other perennials including lots of hostas, daylilies, rudbeckias and coneflowers, so it's never an issue to fill in the spaces; the hostas and daylilies especially just grow a little bit larger while the poppy foliage melts away, and all of these plants will flower later in the season. Depending on where you live, I'd plant a perennial or a low shrub that doesn't flower until after the poppies are done, so as not to detract from the show.

The beauty of blogging is that you learn something new every day. From Sylvia in England, I learned about super poppies, which are inter-species hybrids created by an American plantsman who crossed P. atlanticum, P. somniferum, P. orientale and several other lesser known species over a period spanning thirty years. The are said to bloom longer, come in some gorgeous colours, and will produce a second flush of bloom with deadheading. Now, I only learned about these today and haven't had a chance to really research them but here are two observations about them:

1. Although bred in the States, they seem to have gotten more attention from the British press and nursery operators
2. I have never seen or heard of them here. Which doesn't mean anything other than I haven't heard of them til today, but I'm going to see what else I can find of them. Because I saw photos, and had a flush of Urgent Plant Seeking Madness, the likes of which I haven't had in nearly a year.! I did locate some interesting information about them including an article from Park Seed Company, including a photo of the most UPSM-inducing poppy, the dark wine 'Heartbeat'. Want!!!!!
I bet they'll be expensive. One British Nursery was selling them several years ago for about 9 pounds sterling (which these days is around 20.00 Canadian, but that's okay. If I find them around here, they may supplant my obsession with Meconopsis!


With regards to the darling but cantankerous blue Himalayan poppy, you can read the post I did about them last year here. I know that more than a few of you have had your challenges with these plants, and they certainly can be an exercise in frustration, exasperation, hope, heartbreak--and utter joy when they flower. I’m just lucky in that our cool, moist climate pleases them, even though it causes me no end of exasperation with regards to other plants.

I hope that if you're not already growing poppies (at least the annual ones) you'll give them a try. But I warn you, they're addictive. As for the blue ones...Kylee gets points for total determination, if not complete success. I know what she means, though. I have similar problems with tomatoes...

A Passion for a Plethora of Poppies, Part 1: Getting to Know You

There’s a wonderful acronym that I learned recently, which describes what happens to people when certain topics are brought up: MEGO, or My Eyes Glaze Over. It suggestions disinterest, boredom, even confusion. Hopefully this post about the pleasures of poppies won’t cause anyone’s eyes to glaze over. I think the only real danger of that is in describing them botanically, but just bear with me for a few minutes and we’ll be in to the heart of the matter.


Poppies belong to the family Papaveraceae, and there are a number of genera that come under the common name poppy. (We’ll get to species in a moment). The most common (at least in my neck of the woods) poppies and poppy relatives come from Meconopsis (the bratty blue), Papaver (including annual, biennial and perennial poppies) Eschscholzia (California poppies, which can claim the most difficult genus to spell I know of). And depending on what taxonomist you talk to, other relatives sometimes included in the family and sometimes in their own family are the bleeding hearts (Dicentra) and fumitories (Corydalis, another favourite plant). Now, THAT discussion (about whether they’re a separate family, a sub family, or whatever) would cause MY eyes to glaze over.

Okay, just a little bit more. There are over 120 species in the genus Papaver, and assorted species in the other genera too. (I don’t have stats on exactly how many right at hand). For our purposes today, we’re going to talk about Papaver species and a little about Meconopsis. The particular species that I grow are:


P. alpinum. This is the dwarf or alpine poppy, found growing in the alps as its name suggests. It’s quite similar to P. nudicaule but its foliage is much smaller, making it a particularly pretty offering in rock gardens.


P. commutatum. Sometimes lumped in with the corn poppies, immortalized by John McCrae with his WW1 poem In Flanders Fields, the Lady Bird poppy does resemble a ladybird beetle with striking red and black colouration.


P. nudicaule. The Icelandic poppy, which along with its relative is among the first perennials to flower in my garden. (Hepatica, yellow corydalis and some pulmonaria beat it out.) But the wonderful thing about this species is that it keeps flowering until it exhausts itself or until fall finally shuts it down. I deadhead mine and they just keep flowering.


P. orientale The truly perennial poppies, with their hairy, thistle-like leaves and their flamenco-dancer flowers. I adore them even though they perform for a relatively short time in our garden. Sometimes, rarely, they’ll put on a late-summer rebloom with a flower or two. My absolute favourites are the delicious Raspberry Queen, which I have found more reliable than Patty’s Plum, and the various colours of Pizzicato poppies in the back garden; orange, salmon, hot pink. Well, and all the rest of them.


P. rhoeas. The beautiful corn or field poppies, There are numerous varieties under the corn poppy banner, including the Shirley and Angel Wing varieties which come in stunning shades of mauve, pink, rose, reds, creams and variations.


P. somniferum. Oh, this is a tangled web of confusion. This is the opium poppy, also variously known as breadseed, lettuce, and peony-flowered poppy. Yup, the same flowering plant that produces opium produces the seeds we like in our muffins and on our bagels. It’s cloaked in assorted DEA regulations in the US, but is routinely offered for sale by seed companies, some of which skirt the issue by calling it by one of its other common names. Here in Canada, I don’t believe there are any regulations about it. WHATEVER. I’ve been growing it for years because it’s beautiful. I don’t collect the seeds to eat or figure out how to extract opium; I buy my baking poppy seeds from a health food store and throw my own seeds to the winds or share them with friends. Others can debate the scary-bananas dangers of these. I figure there are more serious things to worry about in the world. To get around this issue, some growers and sellers refer to this as Papaver paeoniflorum, while once again, taxonomists debate whether that’s a subgroup or just a synonym.


Confused or clear? Well, before all our eyes glaze over, that’s enough for this post. Next time, we’ll talk about growing these perfect pleasers.

Bloomingwriter's signature plant...

It's been a lot of fun the past few days, catching up with what other bloggers are up to, what sorts of memes or threads they're following, what the weather is doing elsewhere. One of the most interesting threads I've followed has been the discussion over what a gardener's particular signature plant would be. THAT's a great topic for discussion, for sure, and thanks to Tina of In the Garden for starting the discussion, back in early December.


The answers to that question were wonderfully varied, and left me pondering for the past couple of days. There are many plants I'm deeply, deeply fond of and wouldn't want to be without, but are they really 'me"? Sure, I hang out in the monarda 'Raspberry wine' (which really did grow more than 5 feet tall, as I'm 5 feet 4 inches tall), and have a lot of bee balms around the place, mostly for the pollinators.


Likewise, any garden I have anything to do with, be it my own or that of someone wanting some plant suggestions, has to have some milkweeds (Asclepias, various species) for the sake of the bees, butterflies and other pollinators that need these plants. Especially the monarch butterflies, although the bees are highly partial to it too.


We know I'm besotted with coneflowers, and have quite a few around here, including a number of the fancy new colours. These aren't my plantings, but some container at my friend Rob Baldwin's nursery in Falmouth. I do plan to have big swathes like this in another year or so, in pretty well every bed, so Rob will have lots of business from me this year.

Last year, Coconut Lime coneflower was a particularly fine performer for me. I know that coneflowers like this, with double centres, aren't to everyone's tastes, (nor are plants with green or green tinted flowers) but I have yet to meet a coneflower I didn't love. (Some didn't love ME, but that's another story.) Still, I don't think that cones are my top signature plant, despite the plethora of them around the garden.


Lavender. One can never have enough lavender, although it's a bit spleeny here. Winter wet will take it out, but generally the species and 'Lady' cultivar will do quite well for us. I don't have nearly enough lavender plants; I dream of huge swaths of lavender, but that requires either swaths of raised beds or some sort of clay-dissolving miracle. (happening via compost, a work in progress).

And then it came to me, while working on an article. What plant do I have in annual and perennial form, with flowers from early spring until into autumn? Poppies, of course. From the flush of Iceland and Alpine poppies that begin in midMay,


To the first of the perennial poppies, which also come on in late May...

And my beloved, awe-inspiring Oriental poppies, which open like origami-folded silken tissue paper, in a range of colours from blaze orange to hot raspberry pink...

...to the more subtle but still glorious salmon-pink, with the rich chocolate stamens surrounding the seedpod. 

Then come the annual poppies. We have the standard corn poppies with their bright red-and-black petals,, peony-flowered poppies (in brilliant wine and red); these are all freerange poppies, casting themselves all over the garden, and even in the driveway, pasture, walkways, ditches, neighbour's yards...and those don't include the seeds I've sent around North America, to share with other gardeners.  

These bright pink single lettuce poppies festoon one of my favourite beds for a few weeks every July, and sometimes we get a second flush of blooms in mid-autumn, from seeds that fell and germinated because of a nice autumn. 

The field and Shirley poppies come in amazing colours, often bicolour with delicate shadings in contrasting colours, and bright yellow stamens. 

And, well...ahem...this of course IS probably the main signature plant because it's on my business card, the cover of my first book, and brightens our lives every June, right around Father's Day. Yes, it's THAT darned ol' Himalayan blue poppy. I didn't want to focus on only it, although I've certainly written posts about it in the past. But this isn't Reford Gardens; I don't have huge swaths of blue poppies, just a few plants, whereas there are heaps and heaps of other poppies around here all season long. So we'll just say that poppies in general are my personal plant, all colours, all species and genera, and leave it at that.

Three years of Blogging Madness

I wish I could draw cartoons. I'd love to be able to draw a cartoon of a writer, slaving over a laptop while music blasts around her, plants lean over her shoulder, and a cat or two spellechecks what she's doing. Because that would be the perfect way to celebrate THREE YEARS of blogging on Bloomingwriter. Three years and about 345 posts over the course of those years; the numbers were down somewhat last year from 2007 (which saw over 160, about one every other day), but certainly up from the first year when I did about one a week. (You can tell when highspeed got here!) It occurred to me earlier this afternoon that it must be getting close to the blogaversary, and a quick check confirmed that yes, three years ago today was my beginning with this adventure.

Here's a bit from the first entry I ever made on Bloomingwriter:

Words are a lot like seeds from flowers, grasses or trees. They get cast out onto the winds, or in this case, the Web, and we never know where they will end up or how they will fare. Some may tumble onto fallow ground, in which case they fail to germinate. Others land on fertile, prepared land, where they may flourish and bloom. Of course, not every word or every seed planted will prove to be a stunning rose. Some may be weeds. But that's one of the reasons that I connect gardening to writing, and writing to gardening. Both are facets of who I am, not something I just do. And while not every sentence I write is a rose of perfection, hopefully there aren't too many weeds.

In the past three year's I've come to 'meet' many people around the blogosphere, and share some good laughs and experiences. We've commiserated over weather bombs, wet springs, cranky seedlings, too many weeds; we've rejoiced over the first tomato and each month's blooms, wrote poetry and book reviews and festooned our blogs with awards and photos and links and all kinds of other bits of hilarity and wisdom. Some have fallen by the wayside, or had real life interfere with their blogging. New blogs have sprung up like seedlings. There's a huge wealth of gardening wisdom and whimsy out there and I'm delighted to be a part of it all. And delighted to have made the acquaintance of so many of you. Here's to many more years of blogging fun for all of us!

2008 in Review, Part one, featuring books

2008 won't go down in my personal history as being the best year for gardening for any number of reasons. Health challenges were obviously a big factor, but overarching those were two more significant problems, at least in my part of Nova Scotia.

1. The Weather. Oh my. Normally, we expect to have a cold, wet, late spring; this year, that trend continued all through the summer, especially the wet part. August is normally the warmest and driest of months here, but we had copious amounts of rain, fog and drizzle all month, as we had in June and July. It didn't create great gardening conditions for getting stuff done, but it sure caused things to grow lush. Too lush. Including the weeds, some of which approached Brobdingnagian proportions in size and breadth.

2. The lack of interesting plants. Now, I didn't get around to all my regular nurseries this year, to be sure; never made it down to the south shore at all. But I was singularly unimpressed with the offerings at some places here in the Valley and up around the Truro area. To visit a couple of large and wellknown garden centres, you would have thought that petunias were the most important and beloved plant in the province, because there were hordes of them, usually in overpriced plastic hanging containers. The perennial and shrub offerings at some spots were abysmal, with the same ol' same ol' happening. And prices were jacked skyhigh at a few, again unmentioned, places. Suffice it to say that I won't name names, but neither will you find those places in my list of recommended garden centre links on the left column of this blog.

What caused this? I don't know. It might have been partly a precurser to economic meltdowns around North America, to changes in nursery supplying businesses, (a lot of garden centres source plants in plug size from huge growers in Quebec, Ontario and the US, of course). It might have been too MANY new plants, many of which seem similar to previous incarnations. Take heucheras, for example. I love them, for all they can be cantankerous in my soil, but really, how many incarnations of purple/silver, green/peach/red/gold etc leaf colour manipulations do we need? (That's a rhetorical question, because I don't know the answer to that either.) Same with hostas, and really, with daylilies. And many other plants.

But of course we gardeners are consumers and we do fall prey to the "Oooh! Shiny!" syndrome of being tempted by new! Improved! plant varieties. I do it regularly. Same with garden tools, books, magazines and other accoutrements. It's just human nature, apparently, to be consumers and to want to try new things.

Okay, enough analysis for today. One of the pleasures of my work is getting to examine, read and review many new gardening books each year. I don't think there were as many published this past year as other years; for a couple of years there were actually too MANY gardening books being released, and the market was glutted in them. But there are a few that I consider must-have books from last year.

Picking favourite books is sort of like picking a favourite child, or in my case a favourite cat (I only have one child so he's always my favourite), but I do have a shelf of books that I will keep even though I'm considering selling off a huge amount of my gardening library. Leading the list is Planthropology by Ken Druse (Potter, 57.50 hardcover.) For anyone who has ever wanted to know more about the plants in our gardens than merely how to grow them, this is an essential book. Druse does give planting recommendations, but he also shares ‘the secret stories of plants’: tidbits of botanical, cultural and historical information surrounding many popular as well as unusual species. If you add only one gardening book to your library this year, Planthropology should be that book. It's one of those fun books that you can dip into whenever you feel like it, and not feel compelled to read cover to cover all at once. Though you may well find yourself doing just that, of course.

It's hard to believe that it's already been almost three years since the great British gardener and writer Christopher Lloyd left us in late January of 2006. Lloyd’s property, Great Dixter, in England, is rightly world-renowned for its gardens, but Lloyd himself was both revered and adored for his irascible wit and innovative soul when it came to anything to do with plants. In his earlier volume, Colour for Adventurous Gardeners, he exhorted readers to learn the rules of colour—so that we can break them. With Exotic Planting for Adventurous Gardeners, Lloyd calls on us to “do something outlandish, to splash out, and to be freer than ever.” The manuscript wasn’t complete when he died, so some of his gardening friends, including well-known writers Tom Cooper, Dan Hinkley and Andrew Lawson, worked on the chapters and added material. With photographs by the phenomenal garden photographer Jonathan Buckley, this team effort will perhaps inspire you to splash out in new gardening directions too.


One of my most beloved new books of the last year is actually perfect for all of us who look towards the autumn with a mixture of joy and dread. Nancy Ondra and Stephanie Cohen have collaborated on previous volumes that are excellent references, but with Fallscaping, they’ve hit a complete home run. Autumn can be a gorgeous time of year and is actually a wonderful time for gardening. There are many different plants that become splendid in autumn, whether because they are late flowering or burst into attractive foliage displays. Ondra and Cohen are seasoned garden designers and also skillful writers who are able to deliver the information in an entertaining and encouraging manner. They provide dozens of different techniques, from how to divide perennials in the fall to preparing pots for winter to saving seeds. Included in the book are nearly a dozen wonderful designs that come into their own with autumn, and of course a handy compendium of best-loved plants for fall colour. Nan, of course, is also one of my favourite garden bloggers for her work from her own website as well as Gardening Gone Wild, so it really pleased me to be able to review and promote this book at every chance I had.


Those of us who are besotted with trees and shrubs may well also want to try our hands at growing our own from seeds. The gardener who grows trees from seeds is the most optimistic and forward-thinking of gardeners, because they’re beginning a process that will not come to fruition within weeks or months, but rather years. Henry Kock’s Growing Trees from Seed (Firefly, 45.00, with help from Paul Aird, John Ambrose and Gerald Waldron) is a beautiful volume and decidedly useful as a growing guide. But it also earns pride of place in my library simply as an excellent reference book about trees, shrubs and woody vines. Koch was a horticulturist with the University of Guelph for many years before his untimely death from brain cancer in 2005. His partner Anne Hansen asked three of his friends to complete his life’s work, and this book also serves as a testament to that work.


Rounding out my offerings for today is a book published here in Nova Scotia. Did you know that you can eat the young shoots of day lilies (Hemerocallis fulva)? Or that goldthread (Coptis trifolia) was traditionally used to treat mouth sores, which explains why one of its common names is cankerroot? Or that rosehips are one of the best natural sources of vitamin C?
If you answered “no” to any of these questions, you’re probably not alone. And if you also answered, “How interesting!” then you really ought to add Marilyn Walker’s wonderful new book, Wild Plants of Eastern Canada, to your gardening and botany library.
Walker is an ethnobotanist at Mt. Allison University, and has been studying the interaction between plants and culture for decades. “Plants and their wisdom…have been my greatest teachers,” she says, having enjoyed gardens as diverse as Kew Gardens in England near her childhood home and the wilds of the Northwest Territories where she worked for a number of years.
Not only is this an entertaining and informative read, it’s a beautiful one. Along with a host of black and white photographs and some line drawings, it’s adorned with gorgeous leaf-prints done by the author. In leaf-printing actual leaves of plants are coated with paint or pigment and then pressed onto fabric or paper. The art of leaf-printing is an old one that goes back some eight centuries, and Walker chose this as a method for illustrating her book because of the detail shown by the prints.

The Blogging World gets Ahead of Me....

In recent months while I was wallowing in my own stuff, the Blogging world has added some handy new tools and options, especially here in Blogger (which I still see no reason to leave for other blogging sites). A while back I replaced the long and ungainly row of blogs I read with the tool from Blotanical, and while that's useful it doesn't let me know when a blog has been updated. I'm just now engaging in the 'blogs I follow' option, and filling those in.

It takes time to do them, however, so if you don't see your blog in the list of those I'm following, have patience...I'll get my favourites all added eventually. Since there are over 100 that I'm very fond of, it's going to take some time, obviously. I've really been having fun the past couple of days getting a bit caught up on what my bloggin' buddies are up to this New Year, and I swear you're responsible for things healing better! So group hugs to all of you. (And big purrs from Spunky Boomerang, my always-helpful assistant in computer work.)

New Year...Same Ol' Weather Tantrums

A slightly belated but still heartfelt Happy New Year to my gardening friends near and far! I'm healing slowly but surely from the great semi-colon adventure, and while I won't be out lugging firewood or digging in the dirt any time soon, each day finds me a bit better. Than you again for all your warm notes, cards, emails, comments and wishes across the miles. I am quite sure they have accelerated the healing process for me. Those and the ministrations of my Long Suffering Spouse and the cats, of course!



It will come as no surprise to anyone who is a regular visitor to bloomingwriter that our year ended and began with assorted weather tantrums. Granted, days are somewhat blurred together as a result of doing a lot of sleeping but we've had a herd of snowstorms, thaws, icepellets, rain events, and of course, all leavened out with a generous variety of winds, generally blasting in off the Bay of Fundy.


Christmas was extremely mild, which made it a good day for travelling, and then Boxing Day was also quiet. New Years, of course, came in with Yet. Another. Snowstorm...


...and did I mention we get lots of wind here to go around with it all?

Well, anyway. Then we'll have a day like today, when sunlight breaks out and paints everything in shiny brightness, and we figure that yes, we'll make it through another winter, no matter what Nature throws at us.


All in all, it's a good time to be recuperating, because certainly nothing can be done outdoors. So I'm getting lots of reading done, looking forward to making gardening plans for spring, and oh yes, taking a page or two from Simon Q's book and napping whenever possible.


This just proves to me, yet again, that cats are among the smartest creatures on the planet, and that if we emulated them a little bit more, we'd probably have fewer problems with our health. Time to retire for yet another nap (not related to Yet. Another. Snowstorm).

Next time, I promise to talk about gardening; at least to let you in on my favourite gardening books of the past year.

And So this is Christmas...

Tis the season to be jolly, and while I'm not exactly jolly, I'm grateful that the surgery is over and that the healing is underway. Thank you for all your good wishes; I've been home since Friday but haven't been feeling the best. But painkillers are a wonderful thing, as is ice cream birthday cakes. It just all takes time.

My greatest gift this Christmas to have my family with me over these few days, and hope for a healthy 2009.

So to all of you from my garden, much love and best wishes for a Happy Christmas, a Joyeux Noel, a Happy Chanukah, or whatever else you might be celebrating.

And a little Christmas music to send us out from my favourite musician....

T-minus one week: Rhapsodie en bleu

I realize I've lapsed back into silence of late, but my reason is a pretty good one. This time next week I'll be about six hours from going into the hospital to have surgery to fix a problem once and for all. (Optimistic to a Fault, that's me!) I won't be in hospital for long, which is a good thing because separating me from my iPhone or Nano full of music will make me even crankier than I usually am. However, when I get home I'll be way limited in what I can do. No lifting, etc. Even my laptop I think is slightly over the five pound limit. Definitely won't be going anywhere for at least a week.

So I have to basically finish up some work for the next three or four weeks plus get ready for Christmas before next Sunday night. Which has me singin' the blues. And I don't mean Blue Christmas, either. But you know what? Whatever doesn't get done, is not that important. We're all adults in my family and we'll be together and if my dearly beloved gets press-ganged into doing all the wrapping of stuff other than what he's getting, well, he's a good and patient man and will handle that with his usual aplomb. Especially since we know Simon, Mungus, and the rest of the crew will be glad to help him with such preparations. I'll lay back in bed or on the couch, read blogs and books, and practice getting healed up quickly. So it will all work out.

I'm working on a project that I hope to be able to tell you more about early in the New Year, but I'm just superstitious enough that I won't say more than that. However, I've been looking through some of the gazillion files on my computer and found a folder full of blue-flowered plants, about which I've waxed rhapsodic in the past. They're so beautiful, I thought I'd share them, especially as we sail into the Christmas season where so much is decorated in green, red and white. All of which I love, but it's well known that my favourite flowers in the garden tend to all be blue. 
When we are down in the dumps, we say we have the blues. I've always found that curious because I find blue to be a most soothing and yet uplifting colour. Of course, many of the flowers we call blue are actually lavender, mauve, purple, violet, or other colour related to but not exactly true blue. 


It would be fun to do an all blue planting in my garden, as we actually have quite a number of blue flowered perennials, annuals and shrubs. They don't, however, all bloom at the same time and the rebel gardener in me would have to plop something brilliant orange or fuchsia into the middle to just set it all off. But it would be fun, because I never met a blue flowered plant I didn't love.

I stand corrected. I don't love this, or even like it. To be honest, my first reaction when I saw these painted poinsettias a few years ago was revulsion. Now I just roll my eyes at them the way I do at the black, pink or tangerine coloured fake Christmas trees that some like. Chacun a son gout, of course, but you won't see a blue poinsettia in my house this Christmas.

Nor in my hospital room. Just sayin'.