These self seeded poppies have suddenly sprung up in the garden - the ones in the photo above are growing in between the bricks in the path, and the others are in a pot of mint. I grew some gorgeous 'Black Peony' annual poppies last year, but I don't know whether these are that variety, or a different interloper.
I like the glaucous grey/green foliage of the plants and the delicate stems with their nodding buds. I shall watch with interest to find out what colour they are.
On a less happy note, my poor clematis macropetala which flowered very well earlier in the year has had a nasty outbreak of brown scale insect all up the stems. It was my fault for not noticing sooner, but the insects were well camouflaged on the stems and it was only the browning of some of the leaves that made me notice. I have tried to remove as many insects as I can (yuck!), pruned out the worst affected stems and have sprayed with a washing up solution in the vain hope it might help. I shall give it a good feed and keep an eye on it (and on my many other clematis plants). What Mother Nature gives with one hand, she takes away with the other!
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