A Poppy Population

When I moved into my house a few years ago, even though I pulled out a lot of plants, some sick, some water hogs, there were plants I didn't pull out: poppies. The neighborhood has a scattering of bread seed poppies (Papavar somniferum) of all colors and petal shapes, hybridizing with each other as the bumble bees visit them from yard to yard. They've naturalized around here, and I'm not complaining—they're lovely, the native and honey bees love them, and I like baking with their seeds. Additionally, the local version of the California poppy (Eschscholzia californica), which is a little lower growing that the standard California poppy and sports mango-orange flowers with a lighter rim around the edges rather than the solid orange, grows all over our park and neighborhood, firmly established in my yard.

In the past couple seasons, I've added more poppies. I planted two more native poppies, Wind poppy (Stylomecon heterophylla) and Tufted poppy (Eschscholzia caespitosa), as well as a red flowered California poppy variety. And, because they look so fragile but they're actually so tough, I planted out a few Moroccan poppies (Papavar atlanticum) last year which have re-seeded wonderfully in my yard this year.

And that—the fact that they reseed themselves so well—is part of the joy of poppies. I don't know where they're going to pop up. I have no idea which color and petal variation the bread seed poppy will be until it opens. The poppies in my yard are a bit of colorful chaos, sometimes happily clashing with everything around them. They're the best.

I took each of these pictures today. While the Wind poppy already bloomed and the Moroccan poppy is just about to start, all of the poppies below are blooming right now.

Breadseed poppy about to unfurl this morning.

The same poppy a couple hours later.

A different color and petal form in another breadseed poppy.

A red variation of the California poppy.

Tufted poppy: the flowers are about the size of a quarter and there are loads of them.

California poppy among yarrow plants.

The local variety of California poppy.