My Favorite Spot, June 30th
I receive many gardening catalogs and a few other miscellaneous pieces of gardening junk mail. In one of these envelopes, tucked among glossy flyers, were free Red Poppy seeds. I sowed these with the rest of my annuals in March and they germinated well.
This season, I used the poppies as place-holders for the Cerise Queen yarrow in the magnolia bed. They were itty bitty plants when I tucked them into the straw in early May. The poppies have exceeded all my expectations and grown into floriferous monsters. In fact, with their flushed, silken petals, they are stealing the show from the established perennials. The visitors to my garden all admire the poppy patch.
I was a bit disappointed when the first poppy opened to reveal a blush pink color. (After all, the package said RED Poppy.) Subsequent blooms have proven to be a range of colors, from fiery red to the aforementioned, insipid pink. While I prefer the true red poppies, the gradation of red shades is a nice effect.
Next year, the poppies will be gone and the yarrow will be blooming in their place. Knowing that I'll only have the poppies here for only a single season, I find that I can’t stop photographing the patch. I'll have to find room for annual poppies again next year because they are sure to make some spot my favorite.
This season, I used the poppies as place-holders for the Cerise Queen yarrow in the magnolia bed. They were itty bitty plants when I tucked them into the straw in early May. The poppies have exceeded all my expectations and grown into floriferous monsters. In fact, with their flushed, silken petals, they are stealing the show from the established perennials. The visitors to my garden all admire the poppy patch.I was a bit disappointed when the first poppy opened to reveal a blush pink color. (After all, the package said RED Poppy.) Subsequent blooms have proven to be a range of colors, from fiery red to the aforementioned, insipid pink. While I prefer the true red poppies, the gradation of red shades is a nice effect.
Next year, the poppies will be gone and the yarrow will be blooming in their place. Knowing that I'll only have the poppies here for only a single season, I find that I can’t stop photographing the patch. I'll have to find room for annual poppies again next year because they are sure to make some spot my favorite.
posted by Kasmira at 30.6.06
7 Comments:
Lovely!
As an aside, I googled "College Hill Gardeners" earlier because I've read both Tuesday and Thursdays for the farmers' market. One of your posts was on the first page of results. Wow! You're famous! ;)
Will the poppies seed themselves and potentially come back next year?
I love "happy accidents" in the garden, when you aren't sure how or if things will turn out, but they turn out like these poppies. Very nice!
Kasmira, if you don't deadhead them, they'll reseed themselves next year. Or you wait until the "pods" are ripe and save the seed to sow early next spring. My poppies are wonderful this year also. Most of them are from seed I saved last year. I'll be saving seed again this year to make an even bigger poppy patch!
In my book there's nothing prettier than those delicate poppies with their "crepe paper" petals, and yours are lovely. You've reminded me to plant some next year!
Let them go to seed and you will have a few volunteers each year.
Amy - ha, famous! I hit my blog all the time on google searches. I guess I google the same things I write about!
Heather - the poppies may seed themselves, but I have other plans for the area they are presently occupying. I'll move any volunteers to a different spot next year.
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