Blooms for the new year.

Once the decorations have been taken down and stowed away for another year, I always think my home looks a little sad and plain. My thoughts turn to flowers for some 'living' decoration to breathe new life into the new year. I have found some lovely inspiration on Pinterest.

 Although formal arrangements can look stunning in the right place, I much prefer something simple for my home.

I love the soft and pretty colours of all these arrangements, easing us into the new year gently. The containers are wonderful too, even this rusty old tin! The little vintage fabric bag for the lily of the valley, is such a clever idea.

Ring the changes with a single flower on your napkins instead of a table arrangement, simpler, and more modern I feel.

I often see these little trees in magazines and on the Internet, they are myrtle I think. I would love to be able to get hold of one or two, as I think they are fabulous, and also my mum's name was myrtle! At the end of the summer I did buy 2 rosemary topiaries, which I have on my kitchen window. I wasn't sure how they would survive, but they are doing well and are even in flower at the moment. I have no batteries in my camera , so I cannot show you them, but here they are when new.

There is something strange going on in my garden at the moment. I grew poppies this year for the first time. They were so colourful wild when in flower, and then the triffid like seed pods were amazing. I cut all the seed pods down to dry for this year, and the plants died back, but one started to perk up again around September and before Christmas there was an actual flower, I had to cut it as there was a heavy frost one night and it bent right over. Here is the picture inside.

It didn't last too long, the frost had got it, but I was flabbergasted that it would even try to bloom. Perhaps one of you gardener types could tell me if this is normal. There are two more blooms on the plant now, so fingers crossed. Wishing you all a 'bloomin' good week, with love, Linda x