I’m just now starting to see photos of poppies in bloom showing up in gardens in colder climates, but by June the annual poppies are usually finished here.
In my garden, as June continues the mild, overcast weather of May, there are a couple of holdouts.
I’ve never planted this variety, which looks like the simple “Lettuce Leaf Poppy.” I note that they showed up in 2013, too, here.
“Lettuce Leaf Poppy” and “Breadseed Poppy” are the politically correct common names, because we musn’t use the “o” word.
(For a great story on opium dens, you can’t beat Conan Doyle’s “The Man With The Twisted Lip.”)
Maybe it rode in on a poppy seed bagel. My poppy show comes mainly from Papaver setigerum, which I’ve documented profusely on the blog.
It’s much smaller in stature than those towering in the photo above.
With these much bigger poppies, when a new flower is open in the morning, it takes you aback, like someone shouting, “Hey! Check it out! Whaddaya think?!”
But any poppy is OK by me. Poppies are characters loaded with silky personality.
And there’s all that…um, history they carry, that illicit, pharmaceutical, double life they’ve led since prehistoric times.
Poppies and people and pain relief go way, way back.
There’s just these two plants left that germinated later than the first flush of poppies that got going in February and March, which is typical for Southern California.
Drip hoses and continuing overcast weather are responsible for these remaining two. We’ve loved the gloomy skies of May and June, a kind of weather I find rather addictive.
That’s the kind of poppy I featured in my Wednesday Vignette this week. How cool that you’re getting a second round just as we’re getting our first. So pretty. I love gloomy weather too. We’ve been getting way too much weather that resembles yours this spring (hot and sunny).
Poppies! Thrilling when they bloom, however I can’t seem to get the seeds I actually bloom to germinate, only ones blown in on the wind…I’d take this beauty any day!
I mean seeds I actually bought. D’OH!
I’m experiencing yet another bout of poppy envy. Yours creates a nice color echo with the Yucca (‘Blue Boy’?). I planted 2 6-packs of poppies back in late fall/ winter and got nothing. It didn’t help that the raccoons dug them up a few times, or that I planted them where they didn’t get watered as often is they should have, but I’m beginning to think I’m doomed to have a poppy-less property.
Gorgeous photos; gorgeous poppies. Love ’em, especially the nice, clean single ones. And yep, here in Ohio, the P. somniferum just opened in the last few days. I have a double pink that’s stays around for sentimental reasons, and ‘Lauren’s Grape’ that I hope stays around because of its rich purple, similar to yours.
@Alison, they do look the same. Today the bricks were wet from heavy mist. I don’t remember the seasonal “gloom” being this heavy in many years, but I’ll take it.
@Tamara, you can have fields of poppies now!
@Kris, I’m wondering if my small, enclosed garden has something to do with the high germination, versus your open windy site. I bet your semi-enclosed vegetable garden area would grow poppies.
@Tim, I like the singles too and have yet to spring for the big, feathered flowers. LG is a great strain.