Poppy infection

This is my poppy infection. I have a problem with poppies re-seeding themselves everywhere. They are bright red and pink and beautiful but every year there are more and more plants that come up. I have pulled three 5 gallon buckets out of here already and you can't even tell. I was ready to pull them all out till I was standing in the grocery store line one day and someone says to me... "your in the garden tour this year right??" " I can't wait to come over and see all those poppies you grow" Okay now how can I pull them all up after that?? So they are still growing, bugging me everyday and I try to thin them out so they don't bury everything in their path, including the birdbath... someday I'll come home from work and the poppies will have swallowed the birdbath, chair and fence all in one day.

Here is a picture of the peony I got from Starla last year. There is a long story that goes with this flower and I'll try to type it out for you before bed.

So when John and I first moved here I hated gardening, flowers and anything about them. I had a million peony plants here so John would just mow them over to get rid of them. My mom had a fit that we were trying to kill them so she came over to dig them all up. She had a car full of plants and was grinning from ear to ear and so was I.

Well 24 years later I decide.... I would like a peony plant in my garden and I think I finally like them. So I buy a red peony on our annual sisters garden shopping trip. I week later Starla brings me two of her peony plants and we laugh about the story and hope Mom isn't turning over in her grave (Starla cracked me up when she said Mom liked exercise so it was okay).

That week I'm at work telling a couple of girls during lunch the story of how Mom came to rescue them and then 24 years later the same plants are back in my yard (since Starla got them from Mom...). That night I have to go out for dinner with customers so I don't leave work till late and there is a peony on my windshield of the truck. I find it odd that we just talked about this during lunch so I think one of the girls from break has left me a reminder of my story. I call John and ask if he left me a flower.... he is a little upset that someone is leaving me flowers and it was not him. I bring the flower home with me and put it on my dining room table, like a trophy, kinda like a sign from heaven that Mom says it's okay Connie. The next day I ask the girls at work who left the flower.... no-one! I come home from work and John says (he's still upset) a guy called for you tonight, it's probably the same guy who's leaving you flowers!! He can't keep a straight face so I ask... what is that all about? He says a guy he works with (we're going to call him John, since that's his name) asked my John if I got my flower? John says.... why do you know about the flower on Connie's truck? He says I'm not sure why but I was cleaning up the flowers by my house and taking them to the compost at the city shop and seen Connie's truck in the parking lot at work and decided to swing in and give her a flower. He says he has no idea why he did that but something was just telling him that is what he should do. Now I know this was a sign from mom since she was always persistent and had a way of making people listen to her. I love my peony plants now even more than before.

With that story I hope someday you will all have a messenger boy like John, he has no idea what his mission was but it meant a lot to me.