where have all the flowers gone?

Every time I see a park Up North the flower beds are full of summer bedding (In the summer, obviously).  Formal planting of colourful annuals in rows - or if the groundsman is particularly artistic - swirly patterns - is what I've come to expect.  

A packet of meadow flowers, nice as they are, scattered over a patch of dust, is not.

We're in a park in Warrington.  Anniemay looks very disappointed and her sister and brother-in-law are casting around, looking embarrassed at the paucity of colour on display.

What makes it worse is that the planter only had enough seeds for half the bed.