Call me cheapskate, but I love those gardening activities that involve very little effort or cost for maximum reward.
And right up there in the list is growing annual flowers. For the cost of a couple of packs of seeds and the effort of a bit of digging and raking, you can transform relatively large areas like a floral version of Jackson Pollock's colourful sploshes.
This year, I have been trying out some different mixes in my garden, because what I also want to understand is which ones bring maximum benefit for wildlife.
Once again, I've tried the regulation 'cornfield annual' mix, which tends to include Field Poppy, Corn Marigold, Scented Mayweed, Cornflower and Corncockle.
I sowed the seed this spring. This photo was taken this morning, with the trees still casting shadows over the area, but you can see that, at the moment, it is largely a sea of gold. That's the Corn Marigold dominating, with not a dot of poppy red amongst it, which would have done better had I sown the patch in the autumn.
I find that Corn Marigold is good for solitary bees and hoverflies, and the Cornflowers are good for bumble and Honeybees. However, the Corncockle and Scented Mayweed don't pack in the pollinators, and I rarely find birds in among the stems.
So one mix I'm trying this year, which is my own concoction, is based around Echium 'Blue Bedder'.
A form of Viper's Bugloss, the flowers are an intense lilac-blue, they have excellent germination rates, and grow to be knee-high. And the bumblebees ADORE it.
In some areas, I've added some Pot Marigolds (Calendula) as I can't resist a bit of zing. But the promise of 'single flowers' on the packet proved not true, and the double blooms have little wildlife value.
However, my added pleasure is that the House Sparrows are constantly rootling about in there, presumably finding insects for their latest broods from the production line of babies that have emerged from my birdboxes.
Echium 'Blue Bedder' - remember the name; seek out a packet. It's a winner!