Flowers

“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the mind.” ― Luther Burbank

I have often wondered myself why I grow some flowers. For me, the animals on my farm are company, all with their own personalities and moods. The vegetables, fruit, nuts, berries and bush tucker are sustenance and survival and are a source of great pride tp produce. Interspersed as you walk the farm, are flowers. The linking elements between paddocks, orchards and vegetables keeping the conversation flowing and creating another treat at every turn.

I wonder why I grew them and continue to plant more. Are they just my little luxury to look at and photograph? Could it be the flowers are to stroke my ego as people enquire about their beauty and I tell a story of where it came from and how hard was to grow?

No,  I think not. I prefer the thoughts of Audrey Hepburn;

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” 

I plant flowers as I feel it's like giving myself a present in a week, a month or a year's time. Planting flowers are very much about the future. Each morning when I walk around my farm I see a new flower that has come out and although I knew it was there and it was coming out soon its always a surprise. 

A very pleasant surprise or at least until my morning walking companions the dogs lift a leg and wee on it or my pet alpacas eats it.