Hello! You are very welcome to my blog. The topic today is poppies, because the garden is just now entering a phase where poppies are everywhere! I once had someone casually refer to poppies as weeds (this was right after I mentioned that I’d planted a mix of poppies in my main flowerbed). Despite this, I do not consider them weeds. I enjoy their fleeting beauty – and it really is fleeting. I also love that there are so many varieties! And if you don’t like where they decide to grow, they are easy to pull out, as long as you don’t wait too long.

I confess that I don’t know the names of any of my poppies. I just refer to either the red ones, or the pink ones, or the ones with the white centers … 🙂 In case you don’t know, they self seed, at least usually! I have a favorite one. It is bright pink with ruffles. I planted this variety quite a few years ago and since then I’ve always had *many* of these pretty ruffled petal flowers every summer. But this year, the area where they normally flower is rather over grown and unruly. So unfortunately, there are no poppies in that bed. But, alas, I recently discovered a single one of these poppy plants growing right in front of my compost!

Slight diversion here, as I tell you about my compost. I have a lot of compost! There are 4 sections, but they look like one big heap. I also have two tumblers, which I use just for food scraps, but that is another story. I throw grass and garden cuttings in the compost – but no weeds. It takes about a season to get dark brown, soil-like, usable compost, which is filled with worms. I recently used the end of last season’s compost, emptying that section, which was perfect timing as the other sections needed to be spread out and turned. But I held off on this job when I noticed the poppy growing right there in front of the compost area. I didn’t want to disturb it. 😉

Finally, the poppy bloomed and I felt it was safe enough for the compost to be taken care of. My son was kind enough to do this big, messy job for me. There was fantastic compost underneath the freshly added grass cuttings! Yes, this is what I get excited about – rich, worm filled, compost! O.K., diversion finished. Back to poppies.

I have a few varieties throughout the garden. Last year I let the lavender colored poppies take over my rose bed. You can see those pictures here. That wasn’t a great decision, although they were fabulous to see when they were all in bloom! So this year I’ve kept them distanced from my roses, and I’m trying to keep the numbers down. Trying.

They might well indeed be considered to be weeds by some, but certainly not by me. I have them growing around the entire garden, and every one of them has their own beauty – whether their delicate or ruffled petals, their markings or lack of markings, or their different colors. Best of all, they are all loved by the bees!

I have a few pictures of my poppies to share with you below. I hope you enjoy them!

In Peace,
Dana

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