This is all about one woman’s passion for poppies and her ten reasons why she finds them so attractive and almost addictive. For her they fill the period between the fading of the spring flowering bulbs and the onset of the high summer flowers. The ten reasons are expressed by Melissa J Will in her article on the Empress of Dirt website.
This has nothing to do with all of the traditional things that come to mind when you think of poppies: honourable service, medicinal uses (both useful and harmful), and the delights of a perfect lemon poppy seed cake (oh, yes please!).
This is simply about the essential, gobsmackingly beautiful, soul-restoring service that the poppy plays in the spring garden.?It?s a show stopper of the best kind: waiting until the noisy spring flowering bulbs have faded out and before the trademarks of a vibrant summer garden have begun, poppies demonstrate the power of one and how brilliant repetition can be in a garden.
Which is my way of saying, I am smitten.
Here are my ten reasons (which happened to coincide with my favourite photos) why I find poppies?irresistible. The photos were taken during a garden tour in June. Spring came a little late last year because winter did not want to leave. Normally (here in southern Ontario, Canada) the poppies peak in May.
I grow my poppies from seed. You can save them from the seed pods?after a poppy blooms or buy them.ONE
After the spring flowering bulbs have faded, these bursts of colour start to appear.
TWO
Look at this next image. Who steals the show? The red poppies, of course. I could write love sonnets for the peonies and alliums, but there?s no disputing the brilliance of those flappy, red poppy blooms.
THREE
Bam! The orange poppies provide a nice backdrop but the red ones are the divas.
See more at the Empress of Dirt