The first opium poppies have bloomed their best, the bees done their work. Seed capsules are primed, the fancy skirts discarded, blown off on the breeze.
If I leave them, the pods will ripen until crisp and brown as walnut shells. The merest tap will have them shedding seed like shaking a salt cellar. And come next summer, they’ll be back again. Or maybe not. Poppies, I find, are a capricious lot. Love me while you can, they say.
Mrs H loves Poppies and spreads various seeds here and there. The flowers are so short lived and as you say will they grow where they seed? You never can tell.
Cheers, Brian.
Great words, Tish. I’m going to hear them whispering Love me while you can when I see them now.
So pleased this hit the spot, Debbie 🙂
Well done, Tish! Lovely set of bright and cheerful images
Thanks, Sue.
so beautiful – thanks!
I always think of them as having skirts too. Floating away in the wind.
Great minds…
Dear Tish
Very well described. We leave these stalks of the opium poppies in our garden too. We like their graphics. But unfortunately they spread amazingly.
Happy weekend
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
You must have just the conditions they like, Klausbernd.
We have an alcaline soil and a temperate maritime climate with a lot of sunshine and wind.
The wind of course being ideal for seed spreading 🙂
this is so lovely – for me poppies in their inbetween stage are less interesting but now I’ll look at them differently
Always good to find a new viewpoint 🙂
I note that Klaus says that ‘Unfortunately’ they spread. I find it fortunate!
Yes, and if you do happen to take against a rush of them, they’re easy to pull up.
👍
Beautiful 💯
Thank you, Neeraj.
They are pretty flowers. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Gerry.
Welcome.
They’re so gorgeous while they last. The most beautiful cactus flowers here last one day and barely that, so I know how you feel.
Fleeting flowers – always make for a bit of nostalgia 🙂
Yes
Beautiful ♥️
A gorgeous deep red, love the contrast with yellow
I love that contrast too 🙂
These grow wild in late spring/early summer in the Galilee (May-June). Sometimes, whole valleys are scarlet with these and the wild red tulips. It’s rather amazing to see.
That must have been truly wonderful to see.
I wonder if this used to happen here before we plowed everything under for farms and paved the rest. We live far enough out to see wildflowers along the roads, but they took down my favorite field for our new (not quite open yet) grocery store. It grew the best black-eyed susans.
That’s quite a thought. How did the earth bloom before we took to reorganising it. A lot more forest, I’m thinking, maybe with a mosaic of open glades along water courses. But savannah too with all its multitude of flowers and grasses.
Our prairie was destroyed by “dry” farmers. Then came the dust bowl and there went our prairie. There’s a bit left, but not much.
Yes there’s a great book PrairieErth by William Least Heat-Moon where he looks deep into the history of one square mile of it. And yes too, the dust bowl years when we had a real spike in temperatures in the northern hemisphere.
Not the kind of thing that makes one proud to be a human. We do seem to be — in MANY ways — really REALLY stupid.
My goodness, Becky, this is one heroic effort. Well done, you!
Blown away!
🙂 🙂 🙂