Oriental poppies at The Potters House Penketh

This wonderful patch of oriental poppies has been one of the great joys in the herb garden over the years.

These pics are from many different years.

I still find it so encouraging when they start to open each May and keep blooming until some days into June...always sad to see them go..though they leave a gift of poppy heads to cut for winter. 

...almost always snapped in early evening at the golden hour of sunset ....

...soporific...even narcotic...

The opening of the poppies...

I wait each year for the oriental poppies to appear....

and then for the blooms to unfurl...like a flamenco dancer swirling her silk skirt.

 June 2013 ....

  

June 2014...

  

 

 June 2015...

...following Vivienne Maier...

 I watched the BBC art programme on the photographer Vivian Maier...well I watched it twice as it really caught my interest...you must see it for yourself if you are so inclined...
...anyway the thing that has stuck with me is how she put herself into the frame by getting her shadow there on the ground around whatever interested her....now that is poetry for me!

So off I went this morning and took a few garden pics...
...anyway the garden has done itself proud this week what with the arrival...albeit rather late in the day...of the sun!
Hooray!

I'm going to work on this idea.......

....I often say to the potter...

..."would you mind taking a pic of me?!"...well when you hold the camera...you are never in the shot!!

So here are a few from the morning cull...

...pot of perennial geraniums in the herb garden...

...I love how I caught the little forgetmenot as my eye...serendipity you must know!...

...field poppies are starting to pop....

The sleepy garden...

 

I've been taking pics of the garden and back field for the potter  as he is still in hospital

 just to let him see the way the garden is going to sleep for the winter this year.

I think it gets more beautiful every year. 

It was an unofficial local tip when we took it over more than 30 years ago.

But Alan has used the wood available to make the fences and arches around the site.

... the summer house at the far right...

...the old barrow just about holding together...

 

...the herb garden...

and

...the little sun spot at the bottom of the herb garden...

 

...autumn colours  ...

 

...autumn leaves...

 

...the gingko tree of eternity...

 ...canary creeper seeds falling for the show next year...

 ...another viewing spot for the roses...

... winter food for us and...

 
 ...winter food for the little field mice who live in the compost heap...

...a goodly crop of leaks this year means great soups...

 beautiful end of year colour.

Entering the Jungle.

It rained most of June...though we were lucky enough to be in Spain for some of that...
and then it has rained most of July...
oh and of course we couldn't garden when we were in Spain...
and so now...
...we have a jungle in the back field part of our land!

This is the result of two hours on a meter square bit of the herb garden.
Now I know that in some ways this looks rather attractive...lush and green...and to those followers living at the moment in a dried up and dusty wilderness...I'm sorry if you think I'm moaning.
The slugs and snails are so big that they have smaller slugs and snails doing the housework for them.
I have even heard that they have come all the way from Spain after hearing how good the takings were around our parts!
The Times today had a good article on how to get them ready for the pot ...so watch out you slimey things!
Anyway...I'm knee deep in the green everyday...skipping the showers and hauling the soggy undergrowth up to the old wheelbarrow.
But...the other thing is that some of the plants have grown to twice their size and I suspect that they have been coupling with some triffids while we were lounging on beach beds in the sand.
These are the cardoons last year...

probably around 4 feet high...so... easy to see the tops of the flowers...

...this year... I can't see the tops of anything!
They are at least 8 feet high.

Ahh! looks like it might rain in a minute...maybe there's a golden goose at the top of these and it will lay me a golden egg....stranger things and all that!