WRITTEN BY VALERIE EASTON PHOTOGRAPHED BY JACQUELINE KOCH

	Shirley and bread-seed poppies combine with nasturtiums for a casual meadow of early-summer color.

I've always loved poppies, from the showy, blowsy orientals to the exquisitely delicate Shirley poppies (P. rhoeas). So why are they so rarely seen in gardens anymore? Poppies are easy to grow in sun and well-drained soil, obligingly self-seed (although the pastels seem to die out each year while the brazen reds persist), and are as beautiful in the vase as in the garden, with their curious buds and hairy stems. It's true that the foliage of the perennial P. orientale withers away in an ugly mess, but since this happens in early June, plenty of perennials are clambering to fill in. British garden designer and author Gertrude Jekyll planted perennial baby's breath (Gypsophila paniculata) with her poppies, for it grows into a cloud of little white flowers that quickly disguise the poppy's demise.
 

Now In Bloom Tree peonies are long-lived woody shrubs that grow slowly to 3 to 5 feet tall and take several years to bloom. Your patience will be rewarded by some of the most spectacular flowers the plant kingdom has to offer, set atop handsome, divided spreading foliage. The plump buds open in May into huge, cup-shaped, ruffled flowers centered with frilly yellow anthers. The orange, yellow and copper-colored hybrids are especially lovely, all crosses of Paeonia suffruticosa, P. delavayi and P. lutea. Tree peonies need deep, rich soil and sunshine; they prefer a minimum of pruning and do not like to be moved.

The oriental poppy flower's brief life teaches us to pay attention lest we miss the show. Plus, the fat, drooping buds bristling with black hairs are intriguing for weeks before the flower. And when the huge petals slowly split open atop 3-foot stems, they're as flamboyant as flamenco dancers twirling about in full skirts. Old-fashioned 'Beauty of Livermere' is rich red, 'Fatima' is white edged in pink, 'Degas' is sweetly salmon. Shorter plants, new colors and more ruffles are being bred, especially in Germany, because these hardy poppies remain popular in Europe.

Other types of perennial poppies include the early-blooming Iceland poppy (P. nudicaule), in sherbet colors that pair beautifully with tulips and pansies. The leaves are clustered at the base of the plant, with bare stems holding paper-thin blossoms. Like all poppies, just a handful cut and loosely arranged in a vase is a breathtaking sight, for the texture of petal and twist of stem are best appreciated close up.

There's a trick to picking poppies that last in the vase. Since their stems bleed a milky substance the second you pluck them, poppies quickly wilt if the ends aren't sealed. Burn the cut stem ends immediately with a lighter, match or candle, then plunge them into cool water for a lasting display well worth the work.

In her journals, May Sarton wrote compellingly of her love for Shirley poppies, which come in luminous shades from white through scarlet, and are as crinkled, frilly and tissue-paper thin as a flower can be. If the oriental poppies are folk dancers, Shirley poppies are ballerinas, all in pastel tutus. A cultivar of the European field poppy immortalized in the tragic war poem about Flanders Fields, Shirley poppies need only be planted once, for they are reliable self-sowers. Scatter the seeds among shrubs, along a fence or between roses for a show that lasts for months.

But the icon of poppies has to be the variously called peony-flowered, opium or bread-seed poppy (P. somniferum). It is illegal to cultivate in the U.S. because of its narcotic content, nevertheless, the seeds are sold and passed around, and I see this type of poppy in more gardens than any other. That such a showy creature grows easily from seed is one of those ultimate gardening miracles. It reminds us of our grandmother's garden in its graciousness, yet is irresistibly modern. Mostly it's just irresistibly gorgeous, with elegant blue-green foliage and single flowers centered in black blotches, or with blossoms as deeply ruffled as a pom-pom. These are the poppies that lured Dorothy, Toto and friends off the yellow brick road, so coaxing them into surrender that the little band barely made it to Oz — a perfect metaphor for the power exerted by the exceptional and curious beauty of poppies.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle free-lance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net. Jacqueline Koch is a writer and photographer living on Whidbey Island.

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