The French Garden

Transported with joy, that was my feeling upon seeing the French garden, one fine day in August.

I had been waiting, impatiently, for poppies for a very long time. In May I planted so many seeds in the French garden. But, nothing. Finally, a few plants started popping up. Three tiny spindly ones, and one that grew bigger, and bigger. Here is the French garden in early July. (The lupin was a plant I bought - it was quickly eaten by some voracious creature):



                                           

These are the poppy buds on the big plant in August, so full of promise:

                


 And, finally, they bloomed! Ta da!




Aren't they glorious? I had been hoping for big, extravagant scarlet poppies with black centres. But, now I know those are called "Oriental poppies," are perennials, and take a few years to bloom. I bought some of these plants and put them in the sun. They are alive, but refuse to get bigger, and obstinately refuse to bloom. Hopefully they'll settle into their new home and show their pretty faces next June.

But how can I complain when I love pink so much? I have come to really enjoy these sweet pink darlings. And they keep blooming and blooming! Even now, on September 30, they have five blooms and 5 more buds peeking out. I hope they all bloom before the first frost!




The bachelor's buttons in the French Garden also brought me a lot of joy this summer. I was hoping for a mass of deep blue blooms. But to my surprise, bachelor's buttons also come in pale pink, burgundy, and white! Who knew? (Well, maybe you did, but I didn't!).







 

The garden is drying up - not nearly as lush as it was back in August when I took the last few photos, but the bachelor's buttons are still going strong (the recent heat wave in Ottawa probably helped!)



                                         


 
                                           


But why do I call this the French garden, you ask? Well, the lush mound of ribbon grass (tall with green and white stripes) made me think of wheat fields. And so, in my mind, I had a fanciful dream - golden sheaves of wheat in the sunshine with scarlet poppies and bright blue cornflowers waving amongst them. Something like these images:

                                          


                                            
Something Van Gogh might have painted on a sunny day in Provence:

                                          


Well, my French Garden is not exactly Provencal-ish, but it has pleased me this summer. The poppies and bachelor's buttons took so long to grow that I had to conclude there wasn't enough sun. I really wanted some colour in that spot, so I popped in some pink impatiens and purple fuzzy flowers whose name I continually forget. They have been quite happy there. And I did eventually get one red poppy! (though my friend says it is orange. Hmm).



So it's not Provencal - maybe we can call the resulting effect Provencottawa? Gardeners have to work with what we've got!


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