In the Pink, the colour of happiness

One thing about snowy winter days: they sort of remove most of the colour from the natural world, swathing everything in purest white and turning other shades to somber, yet tranquil, darkness. Browns, greys, blacks, shadows. While the landscapes are soothing on such days, our hearts yearn for colour, especially in our quiet gardens.

Here again we turn to gardening in the mind's eye, remembering sundrenched days when the gardens blazed forth with a rainbow of colours, across the spectrum.

Apparently it's not enough to have a plant of the year, person of the year, song of the year...there's also a colour of the year, as selected by Pantone. This year, the colour is called Honeysuckle, and is an interesting shade of pink. I'm not a colour theorist, and I'm not necessarily a huge fan of pink, except where flowers are concerned. Our friend Joey of The Village Voice calls pink The Colour of Happiness, and I can certainly agree with her there--as I agree with her on most things having to do with the garden!

My favourite pink flowers are the annual and perennial poppies, which flaunt their colours throughout the summer, providing bees with pollen and me with plenty of delight watching the shows.

When I am able to cajole hollyhocks into blooming, they're never yellow, the colour I long for in hollyhocks. Oh no...they're always some shade of pink, or in this case, verging on fuchsia.

This pink gerbera is about as close as I can get to the 'honeysuckle pink' shade that Pantone has decreed this year's colour. What I want to know is, is this supposed to be a colour to decorate our homes with? Wear on clothing? Ummmm...I like it just fine in the garden, or in the house as a flowering plant, but that's the limit.

Last summer was the first in a few years that I was unable to find these most excellent African daisies, or venidium, anywhere at my favourite local nurseries. This plant has a metallic sheen to its flowers, which I've had in red, orange, and this lovely pink shade, and hope to find again this year.

Pink seems to be a polarizing colour, in part because it has been politicized for a certain disease, but aside from that it's a colour many people have a strong opinion about. What about you? Does pink have a prime position in your perennial preferences? Or do you push pink into the past, preferring pastels or pungent purples?

Okay, I admit it. Been working too hard, and insomnia is making me slightly giddy. Enjoy the pink petals, friends, and I'll return after I catch up my work and my sleep!

Enjoy Freedom? Thank a veteran, past or present.

Today Canadians join other countries around the world as we pause and honour the sacrifices made by our veterans in wars of the past...and thank those who serve in our Armed forces today as well.

As I do every year, I offer up this heartfelt song by Nova Scotian musician Terry Kelly, "A Pittance of Time." No words are needed.



"In peace may they rest
May we never forget why they died...
...take a pittance of time."

"Rainbows, Pots of Gold and Moonbeams..."

Isn't it funny what a word or two will trigger in our heads? When I read Rebecca's post offering a Rainbow Invitation to fellow bloggers, I knew I would have to participate, because rainbows are one of those things that make me instantly happy. I surround myself with them, with faceted crystals that send rainbow light dancing through my office at just the hint of sunlight, (and sometimes even without), with rainbow coloured fun things...and with plants of course.

Thinking about a title for this post, the first thing that came into my head was the old song by Studebaker Hawk, 'Rainbows, Pots of Gold and Moonbeams.' Usually it's Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" that pops into my head, or possibly David Cook's Time of my Life, which we snarky Cook fans refer to as the Magic Frakkin' Rainbow song. Or possibly something from Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' album.

Okay, it's entirely I'm possibly procrastinating today because I should be writing plant profiles for a work project, not poking through my iTunes collection. Onwards with the floral rainbow.


Poppies are freerange around our place, which I should have called Poppy Hill instead of Sunflower Hill, I suppose. They are instant happy-making, whether they're red, purple, orange, yellow, white...or blue.


I've finally mastered the art of growing geums: not too much winter wet, and they'll come through and flourish nicely. And cutting the spent blossoms means they'll flower for a lot longer. This is 'Cooky'.

Yellow roses just do it for me, providing they are hardy to my garden's foibles. Of the three that I grow, this is the most fragrant, (and the thorniest), the lovely rugosa hybrid 'Topaz Jewel'.


Oh, well it can be no surprise to anyone who knows my tastes that for green, I'd have to trot out Echinacea 'Green Envy', which still continues to delight me. I have 'Coconut Lime' double echinacea as well, which also does splendidly, but of all the funky coloured cones, 'Green Envy' is still my first love.
Bet you thought I was going to torment y'all with Meconopsis (the naughty blue poppy) here, didn't you? I did an ode-to-blue flowers a few weeks back because I do adore them, and while Meconopsis is important to me, it's the china blue forget-me-nots that touch my heart most deeply, because of my Dad, who died of Alzheimer's disease almost five years ago.

For my indigo offering, I couldn't resist presenting the Perennial Plant Association's 2010 Perennial of the Year, Blue False Indigo (Baptisia australis). It is an awesome perennial, but don't be in a hurry for it to bloom after you plant it, and don't move it because it will pout and sulk even longer.

We do clematis really, really well here, because of the cool dampness that keeps the roots happy, and because we work our way out of the fog in time to bathe most of the species and hybrids we have in warm sunlight. I think this is 'Jackmanii', though I can't be sure because we rescued it years ago from a house that was going to be torn down.

A note to regular readers: this next few weeks are going to be particularly hectic for me, so I may slow down in both posting and in visiting, commenting on, and 'picking' posts from other blogs. Rest assured, please, that all is well, and I will have some good news to share a little ways down the road. Maybe not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but happy news none-the-less.

Everything's poppin' up poppies!

Yesterday dawned a little foggy but also sunny, and since I was feeling pretty good, we decided to go to Liverpool, collect the rest of my stuff, and put that chapter of my life (happily) far, far behind me. As we got ready, I looked outside, told longsuffering spouse I'd be a few minutes, and took off outside with my camera.


Some mornings we have what I call 'breathing fog.' It's very odd, and seems to come in and go back out again like inhalations and exhalations of breath. One moment the sun is obscured, the next it's breaking through the mist, and the next everything is bathed in sunlight. It makes for a lot of moisture, but also some interesting light and great photography moments.

Those who are regular readers of bloomingwriter know that I adore poppies of all kinds, be they annual, perennial, biennial, or blue. Right now, right on schedule, the big annual breadseed poppies have begun blooming in earnest.

I collect seed every year from the ones I like the best and then cast it around the garden here and there, and let the poppies do their thing. They also selfseed, of course, and they seem to cross pollinate, coming up with some extraordinary shades.

Our absolute favourites in the annual poppies are these deep wine double beauties. Aren't they great? Maybe not to everyone's tastes, but I love dark-wine flowers, and have a number of different plants with rich dark flowers or foliage.

Poppies catch the light as beautifully as do tulips, as they have equally transluscent, silken petals. They don't last as long as individual flowers, but they're profuse and for a few weeks we get to enjoy quite a happy show of colours.

As one poppy finishes and drops its blooms, others are opening up to show off their beauty, while still others are preparing to open or getting in the queue for a performance in a few days time.

One particular bed is host to mostly bright pink, single poppies. I love their foliage too, until the flowers are spent. Then I only leave in the ones that we'll use to collect seed; the rest get hauled out because their foliage gets quite ratty looking.

I spend a good deal of time looking into the centre of our poppies, with or without my camera. Everything about their flowers pleases me, from their showy petals to their complex hearts with the many stamens clustered around the central carpal.

In case you're feeling a bit bludgeoned by all those deep, rich colours, here's a little contribution from the Icelandic poppies, which are never shy about showing off THEIR beauty. These biennial or perennial poppies will bloom themselves almost to death, especially if you're faithful about deadheading. I've had them flower until hard frost before. And they pop up in odd places, so I never know where we'll see them, but we welcome them always.

A Passion for a Plethora of Poppies, Part 2: Growing tips

Sarah O, another blogger who lives in Nova Scotia, asked me in a comment how I managed to get Icelandic poppies to cooperate in our clay soil. Hence the several posts on poppy types and growing requirements. There have also been a couple of questions in comments since then, so I'll try to answer those as well.

Growing poppies has always been easy for me. Some years ago I bought potted Icelandic and alpine poppies in the spring and transplanted them in, and they have done the rest, seeding themselves replacements each year. They are classified by growers such as Thompson and Morgan as hardy biennials, meaning they take two years to come to flower. Although I’ll often tuck in a new plant or two each year just to make sure I have a host of colours, mostly I rely on the current plants to ensure their own success. They are not terribly fussy except that they demand good drainage, and so they tend to do best in the front garden or in one of the two raised beds out back which has the better drainage. They will often bloom themselves into exhaustion, but not until well into autumn, especially if you do deadhead them.


The annual poppies (R. rhoeas and P. somniferum) are basically everywhere around our property, which is the way I like it. There's usually a huge flush of bloom, but because of some seeds germinating later in the season, some plants being especially prolific, and just good luck, we have P. rhoeas poppies flowering until the end of the growing season. The poppy in the top photo was blooming in late October.

All poppies in the Papaver species will take full sun to part shade. Most of ours are shaded at least part of the day, either from buildings or because of trees and shrubs. If you give them 4-6 hours of direct sun a day (I'm guessing based on what's shaded when here), they'll do just fine. They'll take more shade, but don't tend to get as large or flower as prolifically. The meconopsis also like some shade in their day, and they will NOT take a lot of heat. Hence they do well here, because on those few hot days we have, the plants are shaded by the hottest part of the day. We also get a bounty of rain and fog to keep the humidity up where they want it.

I don't overfertilize plants. Most of the beds get some seaweed meal, some mushroom compost and some regular compost worked in around them in the spring, and that's it. It seems to work just fine, wouldn't you say?


The annual poppies were here in great profusion when we moved here ten years ago, and I’ve just added to the fun. Certain colours present themselves in certain areas, and some years there are more than others, but there are usually all kinds of them around the garden. I do collect seed, mix it all together, and fling it in various beds around the yard, and they take it from there.


Annual poppies resent transplanting so they’re best seeded where you want them, or where they choose to seed themselves.. Rake the area where you plan to plant them, mix the seeds with a little sand, and cast that out on the ground. Pat them in a little if you wish, make sure the soil is moist, and then mind your business. They'll do the rest. The main thing is to give them that good drainage that they want. My understanding is to seed them in spring or autumn, and not during the heat of summer, especially if you come from a hot-summer area. But I don’t, so I can’t confirm that. I know that some years we’ve had poppy seedlings emerge in October and early November because there’s been no frost. But there are still always lots the following year.

If you have massive germination (and you will if they're happy), you probably should thin the seedlings out, so as to get more large plants and large blooms. But here's what I find with the breadseed poppies. They will grow and flower regardless of the size of the plant. I've had poppy seedlings 6 inches tall, with poppies on them the size of quarters. Sometimes I do thin them a little, but because they're so scattered in amongst all kinds of other plants, some of the seedlings DO tend to get naturally shaded out. And sometimes I just let them all be, so that I do have them in all possible sizes. I only collect seed from the very biggest and hardiest plants; I tag the ones I want with fluorescent-coloured marking tape, and then go around collecting the seeds when the pods are ready (they'll be brown and you'll hear the seeds rattling around inside the pod.) You need to watch carefully, though, because one day they aren't ready and the next day they are, and if there's a wind--they'll have scattered themselves for you.


Back in about 1999 or 2000, I bought a package of P. orientale seeds, the Pizzicato mix, and seeded them inside. When they were big enough, I transplanted them out into a bed I was building in the back garden, and left them to themselves. Nine or ten years later, they are STILL performing for me every June, in shades of coral, orange, and delectable hot pink. And some of them are huge. I’ve never moved or bothered them since putting them in, and even though that bed is a bit iffy in the winter, apparently they get adequate drainage that they continue to flourish.

Now, they only bloom once, and as anyone whose grown them know, the foliage of oriental poppies usually dies down once the flowering is over, and that can leave a gap in your border or bed. What to plant there instead? Mine are in a highly mixed garden, with a host of deciduous shrubs, other perennials including lots of hostas, daylilies, rudbeckias and coneflowers, so it's never an issue to fill in the spaces; the hostas and daylilies especially just grow a little bit larger while the poppy foliage melts away, and all of these plants will flower later in the season. Depending on where you live, I'd plant a perennial or a low shrub that doesn't flower until after the poppies are done, so as not to detract from the show.

The beauty of blogging is that you learn something new every day. From Sylvia in England, I learned about super poppies, which are inter-species hybrids created by an American plantsman who crossed P. atlanticum, P. somniferum, P. orientale and several other lesser known species over a period spanning thirty years. The are said to bloom longer, come in some gorgeous colours, and will produce a second flush of bloom with deadheading. Now, I only learned about these today and haven't had a chance to really research them but here are two observations about them:

1. Although bred in the States, they seem to have gotten more attention from the British press and nursery operators
2. I have never seen or heard of them here. Which doesn't mean anything other than I haven't heard of them til today, but I'm going to see what else I can find of them. Because I saw photos, and had a flush of Urgent Plant Seeking Madness, the likes of which I haven't had in nearly a year.! I did locate some interesting information about them including an article from Park Seed Company, including a photo of the most UPSM-inducing poppy, the dark wine 'Heartbeat'. Want!!!!!
I bet they'll be expensive. One British Nursery was selling them several years ago for about 9 pounds sterling (which these days is around 20.00 Canadian, but that's okay. If I find them around here, they may supplant my obsession with Meconopsis!


With regards to the darling but cantankerous blue Himalayan poppy, you can read the post I did about them last year here. I know that more than a few of you have had your challenges with these plants, and they certainly can be an exercise in frustration, exasperation, hope, heartbreak--and utter joy when they flower. I’m just lucky in that our cool, moist climate pleases them, even though it causes me no end of exasperation with regards to other plants.

I hope that if you're not already growing poppies (at least the annual ones) you'll give them a try. But I warn you, they're addictive. As for the blue ones...Kylee gets points for total determination, if not complete success. I know what she means, though. I have similar problems with tomatoes...

A Passion for a Plethora of Poppies, Part 1: Getting to Know You

There’s a wonderful acronym that I learned recently, which describes what happens to people when certain topics are brought up: MEGO, or My Eyes Glaze Over. It suggestions disinterest, boredom, even confusion. Hopefully this post about the pleasures of poppies won’t cause anyone’s eyes to glaze over. I think the only real danger of that is in describing them botanically, but just bear with me for a few minutes and we’ll be in to the heart of the matter.


Poppies belong to the family Papaveraceae, and there are a number of genera that come under the common name poppy. (We’ll get to species in a moment). The most common (at least in my neck of the woods) poppies and poppy relatives come from Meconopsis (the bratty blue), Papaver (including annual, biennial and perennial poppies) Eschscholzia (California poppies, which can claim the most difficult genus to spell I know of). And depending on what taxonomist you talk to, other relatives sometimes included in the family and sometimes in their own family are the bleeding hearts (Dicentra) and fumitories (Corydalis, another favourite plant). Now, THAT discussion (about whether they’re a separate family, a sub family, or whatever) would cause MY eyes to glaze over.

Okay, just a little bit more. There are over 120 species in the genus Papaver, and assorted species in the other genera too. (I don’t have stats on exactly how many right at hand). For our purposes today, we’re going to talk about Papaver species and a little about Meconopsis. The particular species that I grow are:


P. alpinum. This is the dwarf or alpine poppy, found growing in the alps as its name suggests. It’s quite similar to P. nudicaule but its foliage is much smaller, making it a particularly pretty offering in rock gardens.


P. commutatum. Sometimes lumped in with the corn poppies, immortalized by John McCrae with his WW1 poem In Flanders Fields, the Lady Bird poppy does resemble a ladybird beetle with striking red and black colouration.


P. nudicaule. The Icelandic poppy, which along with its relative is among the first perennials to flower in my garden. (Hepatica, yellow corydalis and some pulmonaria beat it out.) But the wonderful thing about this species is that it keeps flowering until it exhausts itself or until fall finally shuts it down. I deadhead mine and they just keep flowering.


P. orientale The truly perennial poppies, with their hairy, thistle-like leaves and their flamenco-dancer flowers. I adore them even though they perform for a relatively short time in our garden. Sometimes, rarely, they’ll put on a late-summer rebloom with a flower or two. My absolute favourites are the delicious Raspberry Queen, which I have found more reliable than Patty’s Plum, and the various colours of Pizzicato poppies in the back garden; orange, salmon, hot pink. Well, and all the rest of them.


P. rhoeas. The beautiful corn or field poppies, There are numerous varieties under the corn poppy banner, including the Shirley and Angel Wing varieties which come in stunning shades of mauve, pink, rose, reds, creams and variations.


P. somniferum. Oh, this is a tangled web of confusion. This is the opium poppy, also variously known as breadseed, lettuce, and peony-flowered poppy. Yup, the same flowering plant that produces opium produces the seeds we like in our muffins and on our bagels. It’s cloaked in assorted DEA regulations in the US, but is routinely offered for sale by seed companies, some of which skirt the issue by calling it by one of its other common names. Here in Canada, I don’t believe there are any regulations about it. WHATEVER. I’ve been growing it for years because it’s beautiful. I don’t collect the seeds to eat or figure out how to extract opium; I buy my baking poppy seeds from a health food store and throw my own seeds to the winds or share them with friends. Others can debate the scary-bananas dangers of these. I figure there are more serious things to worry about in the world. To get around this issue, some growers and sellers refer to this as Papaver paeoniflorum, while once again, taxonomists debate whether that’s a subgroup or just a synonym.


Confused or clear? Well, before all our eyes glaze over, that’s enough for this post. Next time, we’ll talk about growing these perfect pleasers.