Flowers make me giddy like a schoolgirl.  I just love them.  I remember when I was young, before I moved out of my parents’ home, that I promised I would always have two things when I had a space to call my own; the first was fresh flowers and the second was good coffee.  Probably because it was rare that my parents’ home contained either one.

Now living in England with their famous love of tea and instant coffee (I know, sound horrible but somehow I’ve gotten used to it) has pretty much negated the latter pledge (you can read a fellow American’s view on England’s coffee here.) But for the former, I still attempt to oblige to my 16 year old sensibilities as often as I can.

So, first up, glorious gladiolis that I recently bought – wait for it – from my local Tesco Express.  Mmhmm.

Even better?  They were only £2 for a bunch!! I know, I know, you can’t believe it.  Well, I couldn’t either because, oh my god, aren’t they gorgeous??

I keep walking into my living room just to ‘visit’ them.  I know, I’m weird.  It’s fine, I’ve come to terms with it.

I just love the colour so much.  This is actually the second bunch I bought because sadly, the first bunch only last a little over a week as I wasn’t home enough to look after them last week.  I am going to make sure I keep on top of clipping the stems on this bunch and hope they last me a little bit longer.

To be fair, for £2, I don’t really mind if they are short-lived.  The colour they add to the room is worth it!

I also decided to take advantage of some summer bargains at my local Homebase this weekend and picked up a pretty hanging basket which W hung up for me next to the back door.

This is what it looked like before, all sad and plain and unloved (save for my little yellow and white chrysanthemums peeking out from the kitchen)…

And now… ta da!

It makes me happy now that we’ve got a bit of cheerful colour by an area that was previously pretty neglected.

We also had this planter that was left here by the previous owners that I just haven’t gotten around to doing anything with.  I know, I know, it’s embarrassing putting this stuff on my blog because dear god, how difficult is it to just chuck out the weeds and put some bedding plants in?

Apparently very difficult because it’s been like this for a YEAR.

I’m cringing just showing you… please don’t hate.

Now I didn’t buy a new pot mostly because I’m a cheapskate and I thought with a few nails, it could be easily fixed.  Unfortunately, it took a bit of No Nails on just to hold it together because it was actually falling to bits.  So excuse the sorry state of it, I’ll probably buy a new one at some point but in the meantime, these sweet dahlias needed somewhere to live!

I do love me some dahlias, though, aren’t they just gorgeous?

I can’t wait til the dahlias bed properly and I have a few more pretties that will hopefully distract from the sorry state of their container!  Bless ’em, they deserve so much better.

So there are my new blooms that are brightening up my days lately and I think gladioli and dahlias may just be on my list of current favourite flowers.

Have you given in to Flower Power lately and bought yourself some lovelies?  Any favourites at the moment?  Any pledges that you made when you were young?  How about embarrassing stories of painful neglect of a pot plant?  Because that would most definitely make me feel better.