Exploring the Bountiful and Beautiful World of Poppies

by Brence Culp

Near my home in the Anderson Valley, there are some old raised beds from a time when someone actively cared for the property. Now the garden beds are a sanctuary for thistles the height of my waist. Every spring when the thistles rise and dominate, I’m determined to kill them, but I get distracted, then give up when the tarweed comes in.

One spring, I bought coveralls and a weed whacker to clear a path to the beds. It was strangely satisfying to level the towering giants, which I did for hours until my coil of orange cutting string ran out. I then switched to hand-to-hand combat inside the bed, shoveling thistles out by their roots, kneeling to excavate lesser weeds by hand, cursing as they stung me through my gloves. While indiscriminately yanking everything I saw, I caught sight of a short clump of greyish-green leaves showing themselves, all lacy and light. A poppy? With an orange bloom, most definitely a California poppy.

Is it possible a person once planted poppies in the vegetable garden for the pure beauty, comfort, and pleasure of a flower? Thirty years ago, a husband and son built this house to create a gardening sanctuary for their wife and mother. Had she introduced them here? I got onto my knees and into the weeds to pull each weed by hand, carefully avoiding the delicate poppies. By the end of the day, a scattered bed of lacy leaves and small blooms were free to the sun and the air: the beginnings of my first recovered garden bed.

Later that night, thistle remnants still behind my ear—but at least now with a cocktail in hand—I searched online for poppies. Having raised our children in Southern California, I had seen California poppies a million times. My mother-in-law had a yard full of them in Pasadena. But what about other varieties? Was there a New York poppy? An Illinois poppy? My mother-in-law once told me her scientist colleague from Greece snuck a pocket of poppy seeds back to the States for her. Were there also poppies from Kazakhstan? The Andes? Were they different? The same? Most importantly—could I grow them here?

What I discovered online was, literally, a world of poppies. In addition to my mother-in-law’s Greek poppies, there are Spanish (Papaver rupifragum, actually from Morocco), Icelandic (Papaver nudicaule, growing in places far beyond Iceland), Mongolian (a type of Icelandic poppy), Japanese (Glaucidium palmatum, not to be confused with Oriental poppies, Papaver orientale), as well as others hailing from the wilds of the Caucuses (Papaver commutatum and its Iranian and Turkish domesticated cultivar Lady Bird, along with Turkish tulip, Papaver glaucum). There are poppies that showcase the imperial reach and refinement of Europe’s formal gardens (including Sissinghurst White, one of many gorgeous cultivars of Papaver somniferum, Flemish Antique, featured widely in 17th century Dutch paintings, and Danish Flag), and poppies that imitate other fabulous flowers on tall stems such as large, showy Peony poppies (Papaver paeoniflorum).

Lucky for me (as I now know they grow well here), there are about 100 cultivars of California poppies (Eschscholzia californica), with colors ranging from buttercream to flaming red, including my favorite, the dazzling vermillion Mikado. Equally beautiful and drought-friendly are the Mojave (Eschscholzia glyptosperma), Matilija (Romneya coulteri), and Prickly poppies (Argemone munita, also known as Chicalote, with a fascinating medicinal history dating at least back to the Aztecs), to name a few.

My explorations through the world of poppies online revealed an abundance of varieties. Both wild and cultivated poppies are beautifully displayed across websites and seed catalogs, with seeds for sale in little paper packets with seductive photos and long explanations of their cultural and historical significance. For example, the American Legion poppy is a cultivar of Papaver rhoeas which is known, among other names, as Corn poppy and Field poppy, since surviving relics depict it as emerging in fields after corn was planted by the ancient Egyptians (who revered the poppy). Papaver rhoeas is also known as Flanders poppy and Remembrance poppy, because it bloomed on a field where more than 50,000 soldiers died in WWI, a moment that was captured in a famous poem. Flanders poppies still signify commemoration of lost soldiers in many English-speaking countries.

In the middle of all this online digging, a search prompt popped up: “Is Growing Poppies Illegal?” I am not a practicing lawyer, and I am not giving legal advice. However, in response to this particular question, the collective wisdom of the interwebs seems to be that: 1) there are two main types of poppy—one from which heroin is made and the other from which it is not; and, 2) if you grow the one from which heroin is made, you are not breaking the law unless you intend to and are, in fact, using it to make heroin. The seed companies advise you to independently confirm that it is not illegal to grow poppies in your country. Yet they also say, “If we’re selling this to you, then obviously it’s not illegal.”

From that perspective, I figured a few packets of so-called Breadseed poppies would be okay. I justified their addition to my garden since I used their beautiful deep-blue poppy seeds to make my grandmother’s beloved German poppyseed cake for New Year’s, a treat both my dad and his brother particularly enjoy. I like the grow-your-own culture of Mendocino and, while I don’t grow-my-own you-know-what, I really enjoy great dinners from my own backyard, and growing poppies for poppy seed would be a special addition to that. As far as I can tell, the best poppies to grow for poppy seed are the Pepperbox or Florist Pepperbox (apparently also great as a cut flower), Hungarian Blue or Hungarian Breadseed, and Giant cultivars of Papaver somniferum (the Latin name referring to sleep, as depicted by the sleep-inducing poppy fields in the Wizard of Oz). Papaver somniferum is alternately known as Breadseed poppy (apparently boasting dramatic California history episodes including the Poppy Rebellion of the 1940s) and Opium poppy, again, depending on the intention and the use.

For my part, I watched the California poppies in my reclaimed garden bed bloom and form seed pods that look like little wizards’ hats. By mid-summer, the poppy leaves had mainly died back. By late-summer, the dried seed pods burst, scattering millions of tiny black seeds everywhere. I had purchased 20 different varieties, mostly from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, prioritizing beauty first, then diversity, and finally those that would likely thrive in the microclimate of my garden. In November, a friend helped me sprinkle the seeds in open areas of the poppy bed, each marked with a Sharpie-inscribed wooden shim. Three weeks later, most had sprouted.

After leaving them alone all winter, the following spring, we had poppies galore. The specimens that were most successful included Lady Bird, Sissinghurst White, American Legion, Flemish Antique, and Mikado. They are all reseeding themselves, and I hope to see them ultimately take over the poppy bed where thistles once dominated, with little to no intervention from me.

My dream is that someday in the future, the garden beds will be teeming with towering poppies boasting massive, feathery blooms the size of your hand. I hope that, long after I’m gone, the next person to approach the long-overgrown beds may see, instead of the reign of thistles, an empire of poppies from around the world.

Brence Culp lives with her family in Anderson Valley, where she’s learning to become a gardener.

Photos by Brence Culp