We have two gardens running along the side of our house, beside the parking lot. All of the plants there are now perennials, but we don't know what they all are, because every year, something new grows there, something that we didn't plant...it would appear that someone is coming along every fall and planting surprises in that garden.

This year, another one of these new surprise plants has appeared. At first I couldn't figure out what it was, until today when I could finally see the up-and-coming flower bud...it's a LUPIN...and there must be four or five spikes growing there! I love lupins. When we lived in Nova Scotia, we would see lupins of every colour EVERYWHERE along all of the highways. They are to Nova Scotia what dandelions are to the rest of us.

I tried planting them here several years ago, but they never "took" to the soil and died the first year...but this surprise lupin that some dear anonymous garden angel planted when we weren't looking is thriving!

BTW, we love these surprise plants so much that we've started doing the same to other people, especially some of the new immigrant families who can't afford to buy flowers or plants. Yesterday we had a lot of annuals left over, so we snuck over to the new family's house and planted a bunch of flowers in their front garden (we already know that there's nothing else planted there). Then our neighbour saw what we were doing and contributed some of her perennial "babies". When the new family came home later that day, the children (they have five little ones) were so excited to see all these pretty flowers in their own garden. It was fun.