Although England lost the Test series 1-0 they then won their first one-day series win in the Caribbean and Flower's good relationship with Strauss has helped to make him the leading candidate for the permanent role.
On Andy Beauchamp's street in the notoriously irritable south London neighborhood of Peckham, for example, almost every single doorstep is dressed with flower-filled planters and over-flowing window boxes after Beauchamp decided oneday to start sticking plants in front of his neighbors' homes.
England coach Andy Flower echoed Strauss' view that Pietersen, who averages more than 40 in one-day internationals yet has managed only one half century in his last 23 innings in the middle order, might be reinvigorated by the switch.