Thursday, June 9, 2016

Tale of Two Gardens

There is my garden, which is mostly perennials and self-seeders, with a few herbs for cooking and making tea. It is meant mainly for beauty.

Oriental poppies; click to enlarge.

Then there is Scott's garden, which is all vegetables; purely practical.

Potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and pumpkin are now in the ground.
It is my contention that beauty is perfectly practical, as pleasure is important, and that practicality is quite beautiful, because without it you're in big trouble, and vegetable plants give great satisfaction as you watch and help them grow and produce. And it's hard to top the flavour of a fresh garden tomato. Or a new potato. Mmm, beautiful! 

Flowers nourish the spirit, vegetables nourish the body. Two sides of the same coin?

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Maggie Turner on "We've Got Grouse-lings": 
Beautiful garden Kate! You inspire me to give growing Poppies a try! 

These orange ones are oriental poppies, which spread like weeds, more each year. They bloom early, and then I cut them back to about eight inches high in hopes they'll bloom a second time. The foliage gets brown and ugly later in the summer, so something needs to be planted in front of them to hide it. This year when they've finished blooming, I'll be pulling a lot of them out completely because they are encroaching upon my rose bushes (I blame them for the roses not doing particularly well) and I hope this will give the roses a leg up. But the poppies will come back just as thick next year, and in the same places. I don't think you can fail, growing poppies!