In defence of flowers

I don't normally allocate space in the garden beds for flowers. Sure, we have 'accidental' flowers that pop up, like the daffodils that appear in ever greater numbers each year in the front paddock and some flowering bushes (native and not) planted by the previous owners. Growing food plants is more important and many of them look beautiful too. But this year, I got some free cottage flower seeds in an order from the Diggers Club and some poppy seeds from our lovely local vintage store Shop@Franklin and decided to mix them in with the vegetable beds to look pretty and attract the bees. The day after sowing the tiny poppy seeds, we had high winds and heavy rain and months later, nothing had sprouted at all. So I planted out some onions and leeks in that raised garden bed. Of course, only then did clumps of weedy looking plants start to appear. I didn't pull them out in the hope they might be poppies. Sure enough, the first variety has started to flower. In this week's damp and misty weather, the luminous dark red flowers look fabulous against the bright green grass and grey skies. I'm sold - more flowers from now on.