I have so many favourites it's hard to put any of them on the first place on my favourites list. Poppies are definitely one of those.

This one had a fantastic colours of dark red and royal purple mixed.

Summer 2012 was lovely. I had sown some poppy seeds that were supposed to be mauve but they turned out red and gigantic. They were some sort of opium poppies Papaver somniferum, but I would have liked to call them "giganteum". 

These tulip-like poppies from 2012 were 130 cm tall and most of

them were red. An occasional light lilac flower appeared too.

Well. I wasn't able to repeat this trick. Maybe I watered them too much last year, or maybe they were just sown too tightly and didn't have enough space, but the seeds collected from these produced much smaller plants the following year. Furthermore, I scattered some seeds nearby where I live. It was very sandy soil, and when I went to check on them later in the summer, the result was this:

As you can see, all the common weeds are bigger than the poppies. Now I know that they do grow even in less optimal conditions, but even the greatest of plants remain tiny and pale in poor soil. And yes, this is the exactly same cultivar as in the photo above this one. 

Since these weren't actually mauve as promised, I decided to order some for the summer 2013. And these were successful. I had them growing in a very hot and sunny spot in front of  a window, and the colour of the blooms was so sweet! Don't ask me anything about the cultivar though as I can't remember them any more. 

This is the same flower bed as above, but the timing is a bit different. These are another cultivar of opium poppies, but I don't think it had any special name on it. 

I got all my poppy seeds the same way as other; buying from local seed stores, online shops and on eBay. Most seeds ordered form eBay produced something else than ordered, probably because the were collected from private gardens. Having said that, I must also said that most times the result was worth having in the garden, even if it was unexpected. The seeds purchased from seed stored produced blooms alike in the picture of the seed bag.

Full red opium poppy bloom (Papaver somniferum).

This is a random colour variation among red blooms.

This feathered cultivar is 'Flemish Antique'. 

This is a lovely colour variation amongst the red as well.

These are "black" opium poppies.  

'Black Swan' didn't appear black in 2013 either. 

Instead it's red and purple.

'Black peony' didn't appreciate the rain.

I bought these 'Apple blossom' pink California poppy

seeds from the local hardware store.

And these 'double Shirley' corn poppy seeds were bought

from the same place as well. Quality seeds, as you can see.

They make me hungry because they make me think of 

strawberry sorbet!

I have been quiet for an awfully long time. I have been watching the snow melt. Literally, sitting by the window and watching it melt, or checking the melting process several times a day. Impatient? Me? Where did you hear that?

It has finally melted in most places. There are only some places in shade that still harbour small amounts of snow. Now the sight is ugly. Everything is brown or grey and there's very little of any other colours in the scenery. I spotted some yellow coltsfoot flowers during the weekend, so this can be officially called spring now.

My garden looks dreadful of course. It doesn't look like a garden at all. There's greyish brown dead lawn and deep brown soil with some dead twigs sticking from it. It actually requires a good amount of vivid imagination to have an idea what it could look like in summer.

Lush and mostly green. But instead, it looks like this:

The picture above is one of the most promising views. There´s something growing! These are tulip leaves emerging from the bulbs I have planted last fall. I planted over 1000 bulbs last fall, so I expect something to bloom as well. Well, there are some petite flowers to be seen already. Like the Crocus below.

But mostly anything that is even remotely growing looks like these:

Yes, if you look closely, you can see something red peeking out from the ground. That's a peony.

This actually starts to look like a plant. It's an Aquilegia. I can't remember what cultivar it is - if it is any known variety - before I see the flower. I imagine it will take some time before I get to that recognition part... 

Two more peaks of another peony...

What is that? SOme spring bulb, I'm sure, but is it Scilla or what?

This one reminds me of an Amorpophahallus or a Calla flower, but it's actually another tulip's first leaves. All of the leaves of this variety emerging from the soil look the same. Then again, I must have lost the name tag because I have no idea what variety is this. 

This actually looks green! It's an oriental poppy. Must be 'Princess Victoria Louise'. Or at least that's what it's supposed to be. The seeds were sown last year and by the time they were about to bloom the weather was so cold and wet that the blooms just went rotten and didn't open at all. So this could be anything. 

Strawberries! They are walking wild all over my flower bench. Apparently it's evergreen.

Yeah... is this a Scilla then? It must be... it doesn't look like Muscari.