Walking down the bike path on Friday night, Corey and I took a little side-route that we'd seen but never actually used before, and in so doing we happened across the most beautiful garden. At my exclamations of delight, a passing gentleman told us that this was actually maintained not by the city but by a private individual living in a nearby condo.

I'm pretty sure some of the gorgeous plants I saw were mallows, which confirms that I need some in spite of their reputedly near-invasive self-seeding. There were also these gorgeous pink poppies everywhere. A google search suggests that they were actually opium poppies (papaver somniferum), another self-seeding annual.

In my googling I found this website - I don't think I share this person's passion for organic gardening, but I'm happy to buy from a local source. I also note mention of an event called "Seedy Saturday" that happens practically in our backyard - will have to keep an eye out for that next year!

I've also been thinking about shade plants, since I have acres of shady beds to fill. Leafing through a Fine Gardening magazine, I see repeated mentions of a Japanese forest grass, Hakonechloa macra, which makes for nice bright green foliage. I think I actually saw some in Kanata earlier this week but I wasn't sure of the latin name at the time and left it there, and now am kind of kicking myself. And fine, FINE, I will probably give in and get some hostas, but for the record it will be under duress. And I will only be bothered with the nice colourful ones.