Alan pays homage to poppies
As we look to the poppy to commemorate the end of World War One, Alan Titchmarsh reveals his own remembrance and shares how you can cultivate these wild-at-heart showstoppers in your garden
Most of the plants in my garden trigger memories, either of the people who gave them to me, or the place that I first encountered them. Peonies remind me of my schoolboy paper round, for that is when I was first stopped in my tracks by the explosion of deep-crimson petals in a border alongside the path of one of the houses on my route. Another had Clematis ‘Jackmanii’ growing by the front door – I had to ask about that one. And poppies? They remind me that my great uncle Robert Hardisty lost his life in The Great War on 2 September 1917. He was a private soldier in The Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment and is buried in Dunkirk Town Cemetery. Many years ago, when I first started writing about gardening and desperately needed funds to support a mortgage and a wife with a baby on the way, I wrote so many columns that the magazine I worked for asked me to write some under a pseudonym, so that it wouldn’t look as though I was their only contributor. I chose the pen name ‘Robert Hardisty’, a name not just commemorated on a war grave in France, but also on the book Window Boxes, Patios and Tubs (Practical Gardening). I like to think of it as a nod to my Great Uncle Robert who was just 37 years old when he died. But it isn’t just sad memories that garden poppies awaken. They also remind us of the ability of plants to grow in spite of the gardener and often in the most inhospitable places – hence, the choice of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance, thanks to its ability to turn the mud and churned earth of Flanders Fields into a scarlet sea of flowers. Annual poppies like Papaver rhoeas (the common poppy) have
Poppies remind us of the ability of plants to grow in spite of the gardener
seeds that wait to be nudged into life, which is why they appear like a rash on newly disturbed ground and why, if we want to grow them year on year, the soil from which they spring needs to be cultivated to trigger germination. Left alone, the colony will die. These annual corn poppies – common in wheat and barley fields until improved methods of grain cleaning and the use of selective herbicides eased them out – are still of huge value in the garden in the form of Shirley poppies. These variants on the scarlet theme – whose flowers may be white, pale or dark pink and often picotee (dark edged) in their colouring – were originally raised by the Rev. William Wilks, a former Secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society, who selected them from the wild and bred a race of plants that he named after his Surrey parish. The artist Sir Cedric Morris also dabbled with them in the early 20th century and contributed to the wonderful variations that the race now possesses. I grew them this year in two borders leading to my greenhouse – scattering the seeds in April and enjoying them from July to September in a breathtaking variety of colours. Some seedsmen sell named varieties like the white ‘Mother of Pearl’ and dusky-pink ‘Cedric Morris’ – all are worth growing.
Carefree survivors
The corn poppies have ferny, hirsute foliage, unl ike the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, whose leaves are smooth and glaucous but which, like the Shirley poppies, will seed themselves around your garden with gay abandon. What’s not to love? The fully double ‘Pink Chiffon’ opium poppy is particularly fabulous. Self-sown seedlings are easy enough to weed out or transplant when young, just like the Shirley poppies, and both are happy in lightish soil and full sun or gentle shade. This ability to thrive is generally in evidence with Oriental poppies, too. Unlike the previous two, these are reliably perennial with thick tap roots and tea-platesized flowers that look as though they have been made from crumpled tissue paper. ‘Patty’s Plum’ has become a huge favourite since its discovery on Patty Marrow’s Somerset compost heap in the 1990s. I also love ‘Lauren’s Lilac’ and old favourites like ‘Mrs Perry’, a pale salmon pink with black blotches, and the simply named ‘Black and White’. For a good scarlet seek out ‘Allegro’. Oriental poppies f lower early in the season, often need support in the form of wire circles, and their foliage can then become an eyesore. Scissor it off at ground level when the flowers have faded and the plant will send up a new tuft of growth without any signs of a setback. These perennial poppies are unlikely to self-seed, and so the best way to propagate them is by taking root cuttings, around now. Avoid overcrowding from neighbouring plants – as
Shirley poppies will seed themselves around your garden with gay abandon
To see a dappled glade of Meconopsis betonicifolia growing well is to feast your eyes on Shangri-la
good air circulation will help to prevent botrytis, the fungal disease that can lead to rotting in wet summers. While most poppies are easy to grow, the Himalayan blue poppy is a temperamental exception. Meconopsis needs damp, shady conditions in acid soil to do well, and when conditions are right – as in many Scottish gardens – it will thrive and make southern gardeners drool. In hot, dry gardens and on chalky soil it will fizzle out, and even when it is happy it is short lived – usually dying after f lowering. But to see a dappled glade of Meconopsis betonicifolia growing well is to feast your eyes on Shangri-la. Otherwise, settle for M. cambricum, the yellow-flowered Welsh poppy that isn’t so picky. It will push up through the crevices between paving stones and in dry stone walls in sun or shade with no intervention from the gardener. Iceland poppies ( Papaver nudicaule) and Cal i fornian poppies ( Eschscholzia californica) encompass two extremes of climate, but both are worth growing from seed. Iceland poppies are perennials, sown in late spring to flower the following year and good for growing in pots. Californian poppies are treated as annuals, sown direct into a sunny part of the garden in any ordinary soil or else in cells under cover for later transplanting where they are to flower – this avoids the root disturbance they resent. While the 100th anniversary of the end of The Great War will be commemorated across the land, today’s gardeners can continue to honour those who went before in the most touching way possible – with poppies that keep our spirits high and their memory alive.