Life cycle.

Two years ago one of my friends pictured yesterday had a fundraising Cake day at her house to coincide with the end of the school term and catch all those lovely ladies finishing for the summer in need of cake!

Afterwards some of us went down to her allotment to look around and she tore out lots of these poppies that were coming up in her onion bed! We all begged some to take home and here are the results in our garden two years on!

The larger shot was taken yesterday with the bee barely visible frenetically gathering pollen underneath the stamen. The same flower this morning shows all the stamen spent and by the time we were having our morning coffee in the garden the petals were blowing off. Along side a new one has flowered in a lovely lilac shade. No doubt that will be gone by tomorrow after the bees have found it and the new red bud above will be open.

They are certainly a lovely surprise but maybe in a year or two we will be madly pulling them out!