my first ever garden and other surprises

I have mentioned before that my brain can't find its way out of 'the box'. I confess, I am anal in my thinking. 

I hate movies and books that don't tell me how things end. 

I flunked math in college because I had to know why complicated math problems had to be solved in a particular order and nobody could tell me. 

I have to work really hard sometimes to understand puns. 

And so it is with our garden. 

As a bit of background, this is the first house that the owners built to live in as they build the 'family home' on the other end of the pastures paddocks. I have no idea how old this house is but it has wallpaper that I would guess is from the 1960's. 

I can't imagine how many people have rented it, but I do know that most renters don't do much with the gardens. We are exceptions and try to make each place we rent a little better than we found it. 

Last summer (our first in this house)  since I had hurt my back and Hubby was working a lot, there wasn't much done outside. Hubby did move some irises that needed to be divided and he planted some pink dahlia bulbs that we had brought with us. In the back, there were 2 huge, pink, gorgeous peony poppies growing. That's all--just those 2 flowers. So Hubby and I made sure that when it went to seed, we gathered the seeds to plant the next spring. He also re-planted my two jasmine plants that we brought in the space where the peonies were because it didn't get sun all day long. Besides having a huge unnamed bush removed from the front garden, that was the extent of our gardening.

This summer is quite different. Where the 2 peonies were (and the jasmines were planted), there are many peonies growing (apparently we missed quite a few seeds!) along with a heap of calendulas (of course, they grown everywhere) and some interesting plants that have tiny blossoms. Even with all their company the jasmines seem quite happy but my poor brain wasn't expecting this explosion of color!

In the front of the house, where the bush was remove, I planted that space for my very first ever garden from seeds.

In my 'organized' (Hubby calls it OCD) way, I planted specific seeds on one side and mixed seeds on the other. To my great and anal surprise, there is stuff that I didn't plant growing everywhere! Remember the peony poppy seeds? Well, I planted my seeds, but those plants are tiny and other poppies are taking over! In the photo below, all the light green in the middle are poppies I didn't plant and the tiny ones to the left are the ones that I did.

Hubby says that the weather is better for gardens this year than last and I'm sure that has a lot to do with all the blooming going on. I know I shouldn't be surprise that decades of people have come and gone in this house and some have planted their own gardens along the way, but I am still a little girl full of wonder as I see the fabulous colors of nature all around.