REMEMBRANCE GARDEN AND POPPIES

My grandmother's garden had a large bed in the front of poppies.  When I visualize her garden the first thing I see in my mind is the bed of poppies.  I loved the beautiful red-orange color of the poppies.  Last summer I decided I wanted to plant some poppies to start a remembrance garden in memory of my grandmother who passed in 1986.  I bought 4 poppy plants and was disappointed that none of them seemed to grow and one outright died on me.  I was surprised this spring when they seemed to start growing where they stagnated last year.  This is another flower that said it was an annual on the tag when I bought it. 

We have watched as the poppies have grown and blooms have appeared.  We have waited all week to see when the blooms would open.  Matt was out mowing earlier this morning and the blooms were all still closed.  When he left to run to the grocery store an hour later he noticed these beautiful blooms and came back in to let me know they had finally opened  These appear to be giant poppies. I remember my grandmother's blooms being smaller in size and more orange then these are but these are still beautiful.   Hopefully I can get them to reproduce themselves so I can enlarge the remembrance garden.  To the side of the poppies I planted a couple salvias in three shades of purple (only one is visible in the above picture) and my thyme is definitely established well here.  I may relocate the thyme to the back gardens if we get another bed built this year to give the poppies more space to expand.  This remembrance garden is a work in progress. 

I'm still on the lookout for some type of ornament or ornaments to add to Grandmother's Remembrance Garden.  I want to find just the right items to add that bring back memories of my grandmother who was so special to me.  I am considering a firefly theme as another fond memory I have of spending time with my grandmother was catching fireflies around her house.  In addition to my grandmother's garden, I spent a lot of time sitting under a tree next to the garden with her stringing green beans and cleaning corn.