THE POWER OF POPPIES
Every November we wear poppy buttonholes as solemn badges of remembrance. But real poppies are summer flowers, bringing joy rather than sadness. The first wild poppies open in late May, painting scarlet dabs along country roadsides. The last will flower in postharvest stubbles, seeding just before autumn ploughing.
In gardens, summer kicks off with oriental poppies, Papaver orientale. each dawn, whiskery buds shuck their green sepals to release huge blooms. These can be 15cm or more across.
you can buy oriental poppy plants from garden centres now and enjoy the first blooms. But in future years, those plants will become huge, long-lasting clumps flowering copiously every June. Oriental poppies are easy to propagate. you can lift, divide and re-plant your clumps in October or early March.
The other option is to dig out part of each plant in November and take root cuttings.
Oriental poppies are rugged perennials, happy in most freedraining soils. They prefer full sun but tolerate a touch of shade. Typically, the flowers are scarlet, but there are pinks such as Mrs Perry, white as in royal Wedding, or purple Patty’s Plum. I also grow orangeflowered Saffron and intense red Beauty of Livermere.
visit perennial nurseries such as claireaustin-hardyplants. co.uk or Cotswold Garden Flowers (cgf.net).
SOW FOR SHOW
PereNNIaL poppies are superb for June drama, while annuals flower for longer, despite their short lives. you can sow seeds in spring or autumn, but it’s easier to let your plants selfseed, developing long-term colonies. These will flower from June to mid-September. Opium poppies, Papaver
somniferum, are best for structure and substance. Their blue-green leaves and whopping flowers make a strong statement, even though the colours can be sombre. after flowering, flask-shaped seed-heads are durable and decorative.
Beware, though: the commonest colour among opium poppies is dirty purple-pink. So choose varieties with care and in subsequent generations, weed out ‘dirty’ colours.
Selected seed strains range from white or pale pink through scarlet to dark purple. Doubleflowered varieties last longest and can look as gorgeously blowsy as an old rose.
Double opium poppies include deep purple Black Swan, Lilac Peony and mixed doubles. a fine single is scarlet and white ‘Danish Flag.’ Try chilternseeds.
co.uk for an extensive range. June is late for sowing. But poppy seeds have a long shelflife, so it’s fine to buy now for sowing in autumn and next spring. Plants from autumnsown seed will over-winter safely outdoors and flower early. Spring-sown seed extends flowering to summer’s end.
WILD BEAUTY
FIeLD poppies, Papaver rhoeas, are among our loveliest wild flowers. To farmers, they are weeds. But it’s wonderful to see their massed scarlet blooms in fields, ripening barley.
In a garden, wild poppies make a glorious colour contribution.
Strains such as Shirley Poppies, and related species, such as the ladybird poppy Papaver
commutatum, provide colours through pinks to lemon, white, or cindery grey and dusky rose.
each frail bloom will be gone in a day — two at the most. But buds keep opening for weeks on end. and when poppies self-sow freely, you can enjoy a constant show from now to September.
In my garden, poppies self-sow among the ‘official’ border plants — especially where I’ve been too lazy to weed. all I do is remove unwanted seedlings.
MORE GARDENING — Page 86
Gooseberries will be swelling rapidly now and may become crowded on the stems. if you want to increase the size of your berries and improve their quality, thin out your crop.
The simplest way is to remove alternate berries on stems which are crowded. For dessert varieties — or for developing show-worthy berries — thin severely, leaving 6-8cm between each fruit.
Cooking varieties, such as invicta, are best harvested when barely ripe — usually a little later in June.
so, a good method for thinning is to wait until the berries are large enough to gather for cooking. Then, take alternate fruits along each stem, leaving the remainder to swell further for later harvesting. Dessert varieties, such as the dark red Whinham’s industry, pictured, or golden Leveller, can be cooked when young or grown on to maturity, for eating raw. A fully ripe, luscious dessert gooseberry is a gourmet experience.
Check your gooseberry bushes too. Two problems are American Gooseberry Mildew and attacks by Gooseberry sawfly. You’ll see the latter as green-mottled caterpillars, often on the leaf undersides. Pick those off and dispose of them.
With mildew, the widely grown variety invicta is naturally resistant and likely to stay clean. but older varieties are susceptible. reduce the spread of mildew by making sure the bushes are never subjected to drought by watering the plants.