Flowers to Come

kowhai
Originally uploaded by Adagio.

I have been very pleased today to finally get around to buying pottingmix and an assortment of very healthy looking flower seedlings. So many varieties to choose from. I selected a promising mixture of favourites along with things I’ve never grown: Petunias, lobelia (with the white eye), Livingstone daisies, snapdragons, hollyhocks, cosmos, calendula (dwarf). By this time next week my winter-weary pots shall have been given a new lease on life. The area at my front door will once again look cared for.

The rest of the garden is full of cornflowers. Heavily laden with buds beginning to burst into colour. All those wonderful shades from pink through to lilac and a rich, deep purple. Poking through the gaps between the cornflowers are white primulas, pansies, lobelia, campanula and the last remaining bluebells.

I also wanted a kowhai tree for the front garden. There were none available today. Next week I hope. The kowhai will have just finished flowering and I shall enjoy the knowledge that next year I will have my very own kowhai to enjoy. And the tuis will have even more reason to visit next September.

And as if to emphasise today's very definite flower focus, Shirley brought me a few slender stems of wonderful, crimson-based, winter-white ixias. They are standing in the tall, square terracotta vase Grace gave me earlier in the year. Simply but perfectly composed.