The perfect summer garden scene: Lupins and Foxgloves

It is all a bit thrown together, but boy does the colour work.  Im looking at you orange poppy, Im not sure how you snuck in here but you really add a little something

Looking at this scene now warms my chilly bones as the rain lashes down as we experience beautiful weather here in England this August.  Weren’t my Lupins and Foxgloves looking lovely in May time?  I put in a lot of effort and was rewarded with a dazzling display.  Or not.  These are not my Lupins, or my garden either for that matter.  Some obliging soul decided to cultivate an impressive set of blooms in their front garden on my route home so I had the pleasure of them twice a day for a few short weeks.  The only thing I can take credit for was parking up and brazenly taking pictures of a random front garden while feeling many sets of eyes burning into my back.  I just hope the owner wasn’t peeping at me through the curtains.

Unfortunately the purple Lupin is going over but you can still see how they
combine so well here

I wanted to share this particular front garden, as to use a phrase I am rather fond of; it was a riot of colour.  It appeals to me because although the Lupins and Foxgloves appear like they have just exploded haphazardly into the air, the colour has a weirdly sophisticated level of co-ordination.  All the Lupins and foxgloves vary between three similar shades of pink and purple, which isn’t anything particularly noteworthy.  But see that rose on the end?  It’s the exact same shade of pink as one of the Lupins.  I couldn’t do that even if I plucked off a Lupin head and took it off with me to buy the rose.  The highlight for me though is the one solitary burning orange poppy right in the middle, unwittingly perhaps providing the perfect contrast.  It creates a perfect colour story.  I wonder if the owner actually planned this, although judging by the placement of the Lupins, I suspect not.

An overly heavy Foxglove on the lean and furry seed heads, what more can you ask for?

On what was a perfect early summers day this little garden was a visual delight, not just for colour but also structure.  Both foxgloves and Lupins are put together in such a pleasing way.  I can’t see foxgloves without thinking of octopus suckers, which may not be the most sophisticated of comparisons but I can’t help that (going off in a random direction here, If you google 'are octopus suckers edible' the first result is 'how to peel an octopus'.  I am officially horrified).  There was a lot of height, the foxgloves towered well above me and it is only a very small garden.  Now the season has moved on this garden has become quite flat and comparatively uninteresting.  I have never grown either, but I do have a hankering now to break open the packet of orange poppy seeds I have had for a few years and suspect are duff to try and get an orange poppy of my very own to plant randomly somewhere in the garden.

The sky was actually this blue, oh how I miss the sun!  A couple of fine specimens