Wild poppies in spring
Flanders Field--recent poppy notes
1.)
Well, I got up early this morning, and lo!, walking around the garden my eyes were suddenly caught by a strange pink blaze in the horse paddock opposite. It was so wonderful. It looked like reefs of coral, or glowing embers. I reasoned that it was due to some sort of flower. I went and got my camera and took a few pix--before battery went dead. Then I bent my steps over to the paddock--something I'm not usually wont to do, as it looks as if I'm snooping in the neighbour's--which I was!!!
Anyway, it turned out to be thousands of red poppies--the ones with black centres like you see on Poppy Day, 'ceptin that the angle of the early morning sun, shining thru the petals, were making them glow a flourescent pink. A gorgeous sight. It looked like glowing embers after a fire!!! Like a sunset on the ground!!!
There's been a drought for 10 years, and I haven't seen any such poppies, except rare individual ones. Or the odd opium poppy. And very rarely at that. Perhaps the horses brought seeds on their hooves? They are often coming and going with their horse trailers at that farm. Or, else, maybe some fertiliser or manure, or seed, or something, was contaminated with poppy seeds? Whatever it was, I'm hopin' the winds'll, in a few weeks, when the seed heads are dried out, scatter their seeds over our way.
I did buy some packets of Flanders Field wild poppy seeds, years ago, but they did never get established here, alas. It may be something to do with the soil, or cultivation of the paddock, too, coz the poppies aren't growing outside the fence.
What a glorious sight, anyway, to wake up to!!!!
I've got a dry itchy throat, at the moment, and, too, have lately had a few unscheduled deep polaramine daytime sleeps--akin to falling asleep in a field of opium poppies, really!!!! Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz!!!
2.)
Amazingly, the horse paddock, opposite, is full of Flanders Field poppies. The little red ones with black centres. I got up, the other morning, and saw this strange redness across the field. I couldn't, at first, figure out what it was. It so happened that the angle of the sun was such that the red petals were all illuminated; the morning light and a slight wind making them all glow flourescent and flicker like pink embers; like some wonderful coral reef; or the sunset playing on the ground. Quite spectacular. When I went over to see what it was, I found it to be caused by poppies. Let's hope some of those seed are blown onto our place, but I think all of that horse and sheep manure makes quite a lot of difference.
3.)
Californian Poppies used to grow wild at Borenore, in the tennis courts there; but it's damper over towards Orange--on the Tablelands! They can survive on rainwater, alone, at Borenore. There you can get Californian Poppy seeds and scatter them about your yard in winter, and you should have some coming up, wild, by spring.
