poppies

The Welsh poppies do so very well in the shade, and partial shade of the woodland area and under the deck.  They self seed readily and so I let them spread.  They are a delicate and graceful addition to the garden.  The oriental poppies are huge and showy with a great burst of color.  The Oriental ones are almost finished, but the Welsh ones will continue over the summer.  The pots of big pink carnation like poppies germinated too early and in the early spring they seemed to have  died of exposure.  I hope there were some seeds left that did not germinate.  Its always a pleasant surprise when these poppies pop up somewhere in the garden. 

I was over to Cannor Nursery to get 8 fish for the pond... one for the tub in the woodland.  The fish, elvis, lives in the deck tub.  Elvis must be a resident on my deck for 4 years now.  He keeps the mosquitoes under control and so does not need much food otherwise.  The little yellow miniature water lily in the deck tub is going to be really good this year, as it has lots of leaves.  The tub in the woodland has a yellow water iris in bloom.  .. more on irises next post.

We have had some cooler, damp weather, recently.  The rain gauge shows about a half inch of rain.  This is good as the garden certainly seems dry.  I have planted allysum and radishes in a trough by the side of the vegetable garden and they are germinated.  There are some of the other flowers coming up as well.  I also added 8 half price gladiolas to my veggie/cutting garden.  I might see half of them grow. 

The eagles seem to have produced a nestful of 3 young ones this year.  A couple of weeks ago we watched them taking their flight training lessons.  Then, yesterday, we watched the mature pair doing the mating dance and mating... almost.  It was a long stretch for our telescope, so I would never have been able to get a photo with the lenses I use.  It is good to see the eagle population growing.