Opium poppies - Papaver somniferum
Les coquelicots, il faut les aimer avec les yeux, pas avec les mains.
Dans les yeux, ils flambent.
Au bout des doigts, ils fanent.
Christian Bobin
(Poppies must be loved with the eyes eyes, not with the hands.
In the eyes, they blaze.
At the fingertips, they wilt.)
We have been growing various varieties of opium poppies for many years now and we totally agree with the sentiments of Christian Bobin. When you successfully grow an opium poppy plant, what you get is not so much a thing as an event. Pick the flowers and they drop their petals almost immediately. Try to dig up and move a plant and it will quickly wilt and whatever you do to coax it into recovery will probably fail and the plant will simply sulk until it is lying flat out and dying.
To enjoy poppies in your garden, you have to sow seeds and just let them do their thing, and you have to be there to watch it happening or you miss it. The tiny seedlings seem to take forever to grow, but then one day you see that the centre of each plant is rising up, and growth becomes explosive. Soon, you are watching the flower buds developing, growing larger and larger until they look fit to burst, but you know while they are hanging over they still have a day or two to go. Then the buds begin straightening up, pointing to the sky and you get ready for action. The flower opens, the delicate crumpled petals swell and stretch out, the bees rush in and go crazy for a day or two and then, all too soon, the first stage is over; the petals fall one by one, leaving the embryonic seed pod, which begins to swell over the next few weeks, creating a striking picture, rising above the other vegetation and standing out more and more as its colour transforms into a frosty pale blueish-green.
If you were an opium farmer, it's round about this time that you would set about cutting the seed pods to harvest the thick milky latex that is later processed into raw opium and beyond. But that's not what we are going to do. Not at all. We are going to leave the pods to swell and begin to dry out and open up. And just before the seed is ready to disperse via the 'pepper pot' mechanism of the heavy pod swaying in the breeze on its long thin stalk, we are going to cut the stalks near the base and hang out pods upside down over a tray or an open brown-paper bag in order to collect the seed, which is rich in minerals, vitamins, protein and unsaturated oils.
We are often asked 'Isn't it illegal to grow opium poppies in the UK?' and our answer is 'No, it isn't.'.. unless you start to actually harvest and process the opium from your poppies. All Papaver somniferum poppies contain some amount of opium alkaloids - including 'ornamental' varieties and even varieties sold as 'bread-seed poppies'. Numerous ornamental varieties have been bred since Victorian times, some of them with magnificent, multi-petalled pom-pom flowers. Most of the major seed companies still include a variety or two in their flowers catalogue. We have tried many, including some of the fanciest, but in the end we have settled on growing varieties with the simplest flowers, as these display best the lightness and fragility which makes these ephemeral poppies so beautiful and captivating.
Our absolute favourite for several years has been a traditional afghan opium poppy which sometimes goes by the name, 'Galiana'. We didn't source it from Afghanistan. It was first made widely available by the Izmir poppy farm in Canada, where it was kept and reproduced in its pure form for several years. When Izmir farm closed down, many growers kept the line going, including Farmer Dodds, who we got our first seeds from around ten years ago. (Farmer Dodds still supplies some wonderful varieties of opium poppies. He currently runs the kykeonplants website which is well worth a browse).
The pure Galiana can be a temperamental variety to grow in our climate as it needs an early start. A couple of years ago we made some crosses with it and a few other hardier varieties. One cross we made was with a 'tough as old boots' bush poppy which self-seeds and pops up every year around the garden. This year we grew a patch from some F2 seeds, originally with a view to selecting something interesting for further development, but what sprouted blew our minds. We got a brilliant mix of multi coloured poppies of different sizes and shapes that everyone stopped to admire. Since we had made a lot of F2 seeds, we decided to offer some for sale under the name 'Special effects'. We are also making some of our pure Galiana seeds from the last few years harvests available as we have many more than we need. And lastly, for now, we have an F3 selection from a similar cross to Special effects, but using a white flowered, extra bushy, bush poppy parent. The plant we selected stood out clearly from the others, in terms of beauty and vigour, and we hope to continue to stabilise the hybrid over the next few years. For now it will go by the rather uninspired name of 'Red frills' until someone comes up with something better.
Dans les yeux, ils flambent.
Au bout des doigts, ils fanent.
Christian Bobin
(Poppies must be loved with the eyes eyes, not with the hands.
In the eyes, they blaze.
At the fingertips, they wilt.)
We have been growing various varieties of opium poppies for many years now and we totally agree with the sentiments of Christian Bobin. When you successfully grow an opium poppy plant, what you get is not so much a thing as an event. Pick the flowers and they drop their petals almost immediately. Try to dig up and move a plant and it will quickly wilt and whatever you do to coax it into recovery will probably fail and the plant will simply sulk until it is lying flat out and dying.
To enjoy poppies in your garden, you have to sow seeds and just let them do their thing, and you have to be there to watch it happening or you miss it. The tiny seedlings seem to take forever to grow, but then one day you see that the centre of each plant is rising up, and growth becomes explosive. Soon, you are watching the flower buds developing, growing larger and larger until they look fit to burst, but you know while they are hanging over they still have a day or two to go. Then the buds begin straightening up, pointing to the sky and you get ready for action. The flower opens, the delicate crumpled petals swell and stretch out, the bees rush in and go crazy for a day or two and then, all too soon, the first stage is over; the petals fall one by one, leaving the embryonic seed pod, which begins to swell over the next few weeks, creating a striking picture, rising above the other vegetation and standing out more and more as its colour transforms into a frosty pale blueish-green.
If you were an opium farmer, it's round about this time that you would set about cutting the seed pods to harvest the thick milky latex that is later processed into raw opium and beyond. But that's not what we are going to do. Not at all. We are going to leave the pods to swell and begin to dry out and open up. And just before the seed is ready to disperse via the 'pepper pot' mechanism of the heavy pod swaying in the breeze on its long thin stalk, we are going to cut the stalks near the base and hang out pods upside down over a tray or an open brown-paper bag in order to collect the seed, which is rich in minerals, vitamins, protein and unsaturated oils.
We are often asked 'Isn't it illegal to grow opium poppies in the UK?' and our answer is 'No, it isn't.'.. unless you start to actually harvest and process the opium from your poppies. All Papaver somniferum poppies contain some amount of opium alkaloids - including 'ornamental' varieties and even varieties sold as 'bread-seed poppies'. Numerous ornamental varieties have been bred since Victorian times, some of them with magnificent, multi-petalled pom-pom flowers. Most of the major seed companies still include a variety or two in their flowers catalogue. We have tried many, including some of the fanciest, but in the end we have settled on growing varieties with the simplest flowers, as these display best the lightness and fragility which makes these ephemeral poppies so beautiful and captivating.
Our absolute favourite for several years has been a traditional afghan opium poppy which sometimes goes by the name, 'Galiana'. We didn't source it from Afghanistan. It was first made widely available by the Izmir poppy farm in Canada, where it was kept and reproduced in its pure form for several years. When Izmir farm closed down, many growers kept the line going, including Farmer Dodds, who we got our first seeds from around ten years ago. (Farmer Dodds still supplies some wonderful varieties of opium poppies. He currently runs the kykeonplants website which is well worth a browse).
The pure Galiana can be a temperamental variety to grow in our climate as it needs an early start. A couple of years ago we made some crosses with it and a few other hardier varieties. One cross we made was with a 'tough as old boots' bush poppy which self-seeds and pops up every year around the garden. This year we grew a patch from some F2 seeds, originally with a view to selecting something interesting for further development, but what sprouted blew our minds. We got a brilliant mix of multi coloured poppies of different sizes and shapes that everyone stopped to admire. Since we had made a lot of F2 seeds, we decided to offer some for sale under the name 'Special effects'. We are also making some of our pure Galiana seeds from the last few years harvests available as we have many more than we need. And lastly, for now, we have an F3 selection from a similar cross to Special effects, but using a white flowered, extra bushy, bush poppy parent. The plant we selected stood out clearly from the others, in terms of beauty and vigour, and we hope to continue to stabilise the hybrid over the next few years. For now it will go by the rather uninspired name of 'Red frills' until someone comes up with something better.
Special effects
This is a cross between an heirloom Afghan opium poppy and an upright, dark purple-flowered hardy bush poppy. F2 seeds produce a riot of different colours, shades and patterns. Some flowers have frilled petals. Plants are upright and fairly tall (around 1-1.2 metres) , mostly producing several flowers, but some with only a single flower (which often produces a much larger seed pod). Due to the variable nature of the F2 offspring, flowering takes place over a longer period than it would with a stable hybrid, allowing you to enjoy the spectacle for longer.
This is a cross between an heirloom Afghan opium poppy and an upright, dark purple-flowered hardy bush poppy. F2 seeds produce a riot of different colours, shades and patterns. Some flowers have frilled petals. Plants are upright and fairly tall (around 1-1.2 metres) , mostly producing several flowers, but some with only a single flower (which often produces a much larger seed pod). Due to the variable nature of the F2 offspring, flowering takes place over a longer period than it would with a stable hybrid, allowing you to enjoy the spectacle for longer.
Galiana
Afghan heirloom opium poppy. The majority of flowers will look like those in the gallery below, but a few will be paler pink or pure white. Outdoors, seed needs to be sown early (mid march) for big plants; otherwise, flowering will kick in when plants are small and flowers and pods will, in turn, be very small. If sown in a greenhouse or poly-tunnel plants will grow huge and produce giant seed pods.
Afghan heirloom opium poppy. The majority of flowers will look like those in the gallery below, but a few will be paler pink or pure white. Outdoors, seed needs to be sown early (mid march) for big plants; otherwise, flowering will kick in when plants are small and flowers and pods will, in turn, be very small. If sown in a greenhouse or poly-tunnel plants will grow huge and produce giant seed pods.
Red frills
A cross between Galiana and a bush poppy parent with white flowers and a sturdy, branching habit. The seeds we currently sell are F3. There will probably be some variation but most plants should produce red flowers with frilled petals. Compared to Special effects, this cross produces shorter, more branchy plants with more flowers and usually bigger seed pods.
A cross between Galiana and a bush poppy parent with white flowers and a sturdy, branching habit. The seeds we currently sell are F3. There will probably be some variation but most plants should produce red flowers with frilled petals. Compared to Special effects, this cross produces shorter, more branchy plants with more flowers and usually bigger seed pods.
