Technicolor Artichokes

I let some of my artichokes go to flower, not on purpose, but because I've never grown them before and didn't see it coming. These poor photos don't do the flowers justice. You can't really see how they shimmer and glow in the sun, like some floral mirage. They're huge too.

If I had a sunny spot in the beds in front of my house, I'd plant them there.

If I lived in a suburb with an anti-veggie garden property owners association, I'd pull all the bedding plants, all the box wood and red-tipped photinia, all the dull, uniform shrubbiness, right out of those beds, and fill them with artichoke plants. I'd fill them with huge, spikey, architectural artichokes, that need virtually nothing but an occaisonal sip of water, and once a year put on a showstopping, technicolor display.