Tag Archives: poppy

Gardening, Kit's Garden, Lifestyle, Nature, Summer

Kit’s Garden: Poppies

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Papaveraceae family

I love all types for their varied colours and colour combinations, from pale pink (blue) through to red, red and black (often referred to as ladybirds), to purple, and yellow and orange of the Welsh variety. I also like the varied leaf shapes, either lobed, dissected or toothed from glaucous green/grey and flat, to dark green and spiky.

The poppy family is large group of annuals, perennials and biennials poppies which includes the annual orientals (Papaver orientale), native to Turkey and from which we get opium, morphine, heroin, codeine and papaverine plus poppy seed and oil for eating/cooking and birdseed; field or corn poppies (P. rhoeas); Iceland poppy (P. nudicaule); and the Welsh and Himalayan (Meconopsis). There is also the Californian poppy but this is another flower species altogether (one I will come back to at a later date.)

Most types are growing in my garden, either self-sown thanks to the birds, wind and neighbours or grown from packets of mixed wildflower seeds.  I also have two perennials which were purposely grown for a display a few years ago, of which I managed to salvage and transplant. My current favourite is the frilly fringed pom pom ones, Papaver somniferum, which magically appeared in my garden last year. I left a few to self-seed and collected the seeds from the remainder. Sadly, while de-seeding the last one, I dropped the container onto the ground. Seeds lost. Oddly, none have appeared this year where the jar fell. I shall not make the same mistake this year.

With most of my plants, I believe in copying nature and let the seeds disperse and propagate where they will. If I am scattering seeds (of any plant) I do it when they are naturally shedding, typically late summer/autumn) and leave them to it. I believe that Mother Nature knows what it’s doing and plants will germinate where they are happiest. I deadhead during the flowering period, so the plant’s energy goes into developing more flowers rather than seed, then let the last few flowers go to seed. After the orientals and perennials have flowered (typically May time) I cut them down to ground level for often they will regrow to give another display later in the season and the new leaves help to feed next year’s flowers.

There’s always room in my garden for poppies.

Fun, Gardening, Lifestyle

Through the Garden Gate

Aside 12 Comments

It’s been ages since I last blogged here but life and business have been hectic with little free time despite the virtual holiday I had last month (you can read all about that here!) Summer is now heading towards autumn (boo hoo) but what a glorious one it’s turned out to be here in the UK and the garden has certainly rewarded us with its glory.

To think we went from this:

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to this:

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Last year’s weather was a washout and this year was forecast to be the same yet Mother Nature has a way of recovering and boy, did she! From a superb display of daffodils and stupendous tulips:

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pruned foxgloves

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But not everything faired well. The fuchsias haven’t been good, the columbines peaked all at once and were over within a week and my two tall, all-summer-long varieties were blown over in the strong winds we have here. As the plants flourished, so did the snails to decimate my hostas – their leaves are like lace curtains although the flower spikes survived. We aren’t plagued with slugs, thankfully. We have an army of frogs that keeps them in check. The roses have re-bloomed three times now, and we have never had such a glorious or long display of sweet peas. I’m still picking them.

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The rear garden is still dazzling splash of colour with many pots and hanging baskets,

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and the new lilies we found, in red, yellow and white, were exotic but each flower only lasted a day.

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The good weather enabled me to get in the garden more, enjoy my early 7:00 am coffee out there and it’s been wonderful being able to sit outside all day and work whilst enjoying the sights, sounds and perfumes.

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Along with the glorious flowers we have taken much pleasure this year in the wildlife that’s come back to the garden. We came across our first slow worm for many a year, although he nearly got chopped up by the lawnmower!

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Dragonflies have been in abundance, as have the butterflies (read more about the butterflies in Over the Backyard Fence), moths including the fascinating humming bird hawk moth, crickets and bees – I never realised there were so many different sizes and varieties of bumble bees, from tiny “baby” ones to huge fat, long haired ginger ones. Certainly no shortage in my garden.

What we haven’t had this year is the plague of flying ants we normally get in July, nor wasps.

Soon it will be time to put it all to bed and dream of next summer. I’ve great plans for the garden. Much has to come out as it has become crowded, many larger plants need dividing, ie the astilbe and hosta, most of the irises and crocosmia will be thinned out so I can put in a wider variety of perennials and shrubs, and several larger shrubs must come out altogether as they are taking up too much room and creating far too much shade, apart from which they are not the colour they were supposed to be when purchased, but they have served their purpose and given the birds handy perches whilst waiting to feed.

Ooops, spoke too soon. A wasp has just landed in my glass of wine. Oh well, at least he’s died happy and merry. Best go and get rid of him and refill my glass.

So cheers, here’s to a wonderful summer. Thank you, garden, for giving me such a good one this year.

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