I had to work most of the day today, and my plants needed to be watered. Because of the intense heat, I couldn’t let the plants go an extra day, so I was out in my yard with the early morning humidity, the gnats, and the mosquitoes. Oh, such fun! You do know I’m being ironic, right? Although I usually enjoy my outside chores, there’s something utterly annoying about gnats up one’s nose and mosquitoes whining at one’s ears. I can only hope my mosquito repellant worked because I’ve already had more than my share of mosquito bites this year.
Despite those small annoyances, I still took the time to enjoy the flowers and was even awake enough to think about what I was seeing — California poppies with a few Icelandic poppies. Where else can you get such a disparate mix, not just of color and interest, but of geographic distances? I can’t imagine that those two places have much in common, and yet, there are representatives of both areas in my yard.
Maybe next year I’ll look for poppies from other places and make a true international poppy garden. Or not. It’s a lot easier to let the seed companies mix the seeds for me.
I paused here to Google the company where I purchased my wildflower seeds last year, and it turns out they are now selling a different low-growing mix that includes a European poppy but no Icelandic poppy, so if I want more Icelandic poppies, I’ll have to get those seeds separately. There’s no hurry to decide. After all, despite various flowers in my yard, it’s not even summer yet.
I’ll be interested in seeing if I’ll have any blooms come summer. The larkspur is already going to seed, and I have no idea how long most of the wildflowers will keep blooming. Luckily, there are plenty of things in my yard, so there should be some color. The trumpet vine is just beginning to flower, for example, and I do know that it blooms all summer.
As for the rest, I’ll keep track of growing cycles to see what I’ll do differently next year because ultimately, the goal is to have something blooming all season long.
A different goal, of course, is to remain free of mosquito bites. Luckily, I don’t often have to go outside as early as I did today, though with temperatures heating up, I might have to. Oh, well. One takes the bad with the good and hope it all evens out one way or another.
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Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.
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