growing flowers

She has been twisting flowers into crowns since the rainbow festival. Usually dandelions but sometimes wisps of frothy clover. But as I watched her potter about the backyard in search of new blooms to transform,  I noticed the lack of flowers in our garden. There are vegetables and herbs, robust green leaves and wispy ferns, even lanky trees and succulents in odd shaped containers. Flowers however, are sadly missing from this humble space (bar a few sad looking marigolds).

A gentle meander around the neighbourhood with baskets in hand addressed the short term bloom shortage. We foraged small amounts of yellows, dusky pinks and orange from footpath trees and obliging neighbours and marvelled at all the different types and colours we stumbled upon. Hidden treasures we'd overlooked on our to-ing and fro-ing past these very spots time and again. She then spent the afternoon threading satiny blossoms with a needle and cotton and wore them like a bejewelled sprite.

While she hummed and threaded I scrutinised the blandness of our yard and set to addressing the problem. When had my gardening become stuffy, regimented and all about productivity and worse still, manageability? When did it deviate so sharply from the willowy, lush and untamed surrounds that pepper my daydreams? With paper and pencil in hand a list was made; snapdragons to remind me of Pa's house, lilac bluebells to lure pollinators, nostalgic phlox and bell flower to cut and put in old jam jars on window sills, brushy callistemon to feed nectar loving birds and smiling faced pansies, just because.  So it's off to the nursery this weekend...

Although my thumb is ever so surely turning a greenish tinge, I could definitely use some help. Do you have any tips on flower growing? What are your favourites to grow?

Steph x