Peony poppies on the last day of July

Hi! I have this moving in and out project going on, maybe I reminisce about it later here in my blog, too, but now I need a break from thinking about it… So, I didn’t have the time or energy to take flower pics earlier this week – I’ve missed some peony poppies now, there has been so many of them, but… oh yes, today, I do have some pics here… 😉 As many pics of peony poppies as you can possibly imagine that I have, that I took, today, when it’s already August tomorrow…

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One of my ‘wild’ poppies above, all the other peony poppies in this post have grown from the seeds that I planted this summer.

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It was raining heavily yesterday evening, really pouring down with rain for a while – we haven’t experienced anything like that earlier this summer. It was lovely, but I also thought: “There goes some of the flowers, again…” But the flowers that hadn’t still opened, all the plants, got just the wonderful water that they needed.

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One of the missed flowers, and the heavy rain of yesterday… :

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These were not, however, all the pics that I took today – just the peony poppies… The other flowers of today, and some new, too, hopefully, later… 🙂

-Leena

Flowers in the morning

A nice and sunny morning today was. And so much inspiration while having my morning coffee. I’m not sure if I should warn somebody of… something… but here comes 18 pics of which 17 are flower pics. So, here’s some FLOWER POWER. 🙂

I took today’s pics before and after 9 AM, a few pics are from Friday and Saturday. First peony poppies this morning:

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The first peony poppy grown from the seeds that I planted this summer. Five pics of it here… 🙂

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It has grown tall.

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Marvelous, colourful peony poppies…

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And my ‘wild’ poppies, two more of them.

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annual mallow

Annual mallow grown from seed. The first opened mallow flower this summer, I planted them last summer, too. Mallows are lovely. Other names for this annual mallow: rose mallow, royal mallow, regal mallow.

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A Strawflower bud opening on Friday.

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More strawflowers on Saturday.

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Nicely rustling flowers, when you touch them. 🙂

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Strawflowers this morning:

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I took this pic while I was taking a break from taking pics of flowers this morning. 🙂 I was sitting on a bench, eating a banana and redcurrants freshly picked from the bush. Having some more coffee.

And more flowers this morning:

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And I planted cornflower seeds, too, this summer. The first flowers are emerging from buds.

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butterfly flower

Butterfly flower, Schizanthus. Or poor man’s orchid. 🙂 Grown from seed. A tiny and an exotic looking flower.

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A choker… And the flower is called red flax. It’s grown from seed in the geometric flower plantation made by a man. 🙂

-Leena

Blueberry gold, the next peony poppy, the very last peony flower

We’ve been doing quite a lot of Nordic walking, but I don’t always take pics of it… On Thursday I took a pic – I tried to demonstrate what we’ve been doing quite a lot lately; Nordic walking and during that activity picking and eating blueberries, too (isn’t that a healthy and pleasant combination 😉 ) in the forest where one of our favourite walking trails goes.

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The starting and ending point of the trail is by the lake Pyhäjärvi, I took this pic after our walk – trying to get some of my blueberry fingers, too, in the pic. 😀 This previous blog post about Nordic walking was from the same forest, our raven forest near our home. We just love it! – There’s always a raven or many ravens croaking. Once we heard, and saw, many many ravens. We tried to count them; there was at least 15 if not over 20 ravens dashing, flying and croaking. Amazing it was. Ravens are both funny and noble birds. 🙂

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A muffin again yesterday evening… We’re lucky enough to have a lot of wild blueberries in our back garden, too. Yesterday evening we made some blueberry muffins. Muffins of gluten free flour; whole grain oat flour. Oat is the best! 🙂 So delicious and healthy. And traditionally Finnish!

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Two pics of the next peony poppy flower today. This, too, is one of my ‘wild poppies’. This was hit with rain – yesterday, heavily…

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And the very last peony flower – just had to take pics today… Yesterday I was hoping that this would survive the rain and grow bigger…

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…so that I could cut it for drying today. And that was what I already did, because I thought the flower is big enough to cut, to save, now. The other peonies that I cut for drying earlier, are still doing (drying) just fine. 🙂

-Leena

Coffee along with some strawberries, raspberries… and peony poppies

Today’s morning coffee pic with some strawberries and raspberries.

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Wonderful time of the year is this… We get lots of berries (hmmm, or them fruits… but let’s not get into that berry-fruit terminology right now… :p ), enough for two people to enjoy many berries every day – raw from the bushes – we’re not preserving them, just eating them when they are fresh, sweet and juicy and healthiest. And oh, the scent! And yes, I’m still dreaming of planting more strawberries – their season goes too fast in Finland every summer…

The next five pics I took between Saturday and today. Peony poppies. These are my ‘wild’ poppies that are already blooming, completely unattended – they have grown from the seeds of the poppies I had last summer – we threw them around randomly in our garden. And some of the poppies now blooming have also grown as a surprise to us – beside the flower bed in which I planted poppies last summer. The poppies are growing through stones and thick soil, I didn’t expect that…

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I love peony poppies, too. 😉 They also have a charming and distinctive scent.

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Someone else, too, was enjoying themselves. 🙂

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I also, of course, planted peony poppy seeds this summer, but the plants of those are still growing…

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You can feel that you are in Hawaii, if you just put your mind to it:

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Headstrong. Focus.

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Well, you just can! – You can lie on a Hawaii textile… like our furry princess in the pics I took yesterday… Or you can plant your own garden, your dreams and reality, outdoors and indoors, and you’ll have the world around you all the time… 🙂

-Leena