My Alley

After mourning the seasonal end of my garden poppies (and admiring the poppy pics on fellow blogger Maritime Gardener's last post) I was delighted to find this welcome and unexpected guest in the wilds of my back alley this morning. I haven't seen this poppy anywhere else along the road-sides so I'm guessing that it has wandered from someone's garden.

My studio door opens onto this sight, and while I know that environmentalists see this as a collection of non-native nasties, I can't help but enjoy the jumble, or should I say jungle. That red blob is the poppy and there are also blackberries, bindweed, foxgloves, wild peas, blackberries and blackberries. For those who don't live around Seattle I will point out that the Himalayan Blackberry has taken over this area. If Seattle were to be abandoned by people in the apocalypse, it would take about a week for blackberries to take over all the roads and building. But I still look forward to blackberry muffin season in a month or so.


I step over this little charmer to get in the door. Please don't tell me it is something invasive. I like it too much.

Someone else is enjoying a morning stroll through the honesty plants in the alley.



(PS Just minutes after posting this I got email from my Mum identifying my lovely poppies as opium poppies. Wow. Can I expect ATF agents to storm my alley? How thrilling. I wonder if these poppies are the kind that Uzbek suzani embroideries are based on? (see previous post)
My mum also also tells me that the little cutie growing in the gravel is Nigella or love-in-a-mist. Thanks Mum)