Oriental poppies: Glamour girls of the garden
(Read article summary)Oriental poppies have their drawbacks in the garden, but it's hard to resist their glamorous good looks.
Every spring I debate with myself about Oriental poppies, Papaver orientale. If an image doesn’t come immediately to mind, think big and gorgeous and sexy, the kind of bloom that Georgia O’Keefe liked to -- and did -- paint.
My reservation about Oriental poppies isn’t about their visual libidinousness but with their liabilities as garden plants. Their bloom lasts only a moment, they are easily damaged by wind and rain, they have trouble standing up by themselves, and their post-flower foliage is weedy and lasts far too long.
Like movie actresses who rely on their looks, their moment in the sun is brief.
Ideal for those who love color
My small poppy collection includes a traditional orange, which I like least; several reds, including the old-timer ‘Beauty of Livermere’; and the salmon-pink ‘Cedric Morris’. And ‘Patty’s Plum’, a dusky purple cultivar that began as a volunteer in an English compost pile, another good argument for not sending green waste to the local landfill. ['Beauty of Livermere' and 'Patty's Plum' are shown above; to see the second and third photos, click on the arrow at the right base of the first photo.]
There are still more Oriental poppies, including whites and cultivars with doubled petals, ruffled petals, and petals with edges that are fringed or serrated. Whatever the petal color, the flower’s center will be blotched with black or another dark color and contain a large, decorative seed capsule surrounded by dark-colored stamens.
