Flowers.

Some garden flowers are really 'in your face'.   In this group I would put the glorious sunflower, obviously, but also flowers like the blowsy, brightly coloured peony, the tall, deep blue delphinium, a lot of the yellow flowers (a single daffodil is not in this category, but a whole hillside, now that's a different matter.) and some roses, although I look upon most roses as being subtle and understated for the most part.

Some garden flowers are shy and retiring, hiding under bushes in shady places, or flowering low to the ground so that  you have to really look for them.   The violet falls into this class, in fact many Spring flowers do.  Even the bold snowdrop, flowering even when snow is forecast, pushes up its neat little white head and asks for nothing (it certainly never says 'look at me'!.

But there is a plant just coming out all over my garden, which fills me with joy every year.  It is bright red, yet it is a subtle red, so it doesn't shout.   It spreads, so that one clump will soon become several clumps  and it comes into bloom at a time when almost everything else is beginning to die back.   And here it is - the schizostylis - brightening up my garden today - and I hope giving you a little bit of pleasure too.