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Travelling poppies.




Ten years ago, we lived at No. 5 in this street. The previous owner of No. 5, Mr Treadwell, had been something of a gardener and had flowers leaping out of the ground all year round, just to keep him entertained, I suppose. No YouTube or plasma screens in those days.

So we moved in and the flowers entertained us. Poppies shot up in November, unfurled their pink heads to the sun and then gently faded away, leaving stalks and flowerheads carrying seeds. I kept the seeds from year to year.

Then we moved to the country. The seeds came along and the poppies grew in the country. Later, we moved back to the city, a few suburbs away from this one. The poppies grew. Then we returned to this street in October 2005, buying the house at No. 1, two doors away from our old house.

Today the poppies are flowering fifteen metres from where Mr Treadwell tended them for how long? He had been in that house since 1938.

Comments

  1. dinFri Nov 16, 10:54:00 PM GMT+11

    Thats so neat - do you know what sort of poppies they are?

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  2. ThaliaSat Nov 17, 12:29:00 AM GMT+11

    Hmmm... they look like a sort of flower that we call a peony here in Indiana.

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  3. breadchickSat Nov 17, 12:30:00 AM GMT+11

    The story about the traveling poppies touched me. Nice way to start my Friday

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  4. Janis GoreSat Nov 17, 09:00:00 AM GMT+11

    That's a beautiful flower.

    Do the seeds do better near home?

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  5. neilSun Nov 18, 05:05:00 PM GMT+11

    They don't look like they traveled from Tasmania.

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  6. paul kennedyTue Nov 20, 03:18:00 PM GMT+11

    Din, I don't know what they are but have been trying to find out via the inexact method of Google picture searching.

    Casvelyn, yes they are very like what we know as peony roses.Thank you Breadchick.

    Janis, they seem to do brilliantly everywhere. It may be that the overall climate is a more important factor than local variations such as soil etc. For example, they absolutely riot at the beach house, which is on sandy soil and has sea breezes.

    Neil, I should hope not!

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  7. AnonymousSat Dec 01, 01:31:00 PM GMT+11

    Many years ago we moved into a house where a red version of these poppies were growing. Some were a single flower others double as in the picture. My husband obtained some seeds from another garden of the pink variety, so then we had 2 colours. After a couple of years due to, I think, cross polination we had purple ones. Some people have told us they are Opium Poppies but I am not sure. We haven't been raided yet.

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