Meadow
Last year, we replaced some backyard grass with a meadow. Until a week ago, there were only a few flowers blooming, mainly an interesting clover. Then the poppies started blooming:
The seed we planted, a wildflower mix, came from Vermont Wildflower Farm. I supplemented the mix with wood poppy, hepatica, bloodroot, black cohosh, and Mertensia bluebells. None of those native wildflowers came up, I watched carefully in early spring and later. So it’s not what I expected, but I love the combination of red poppy and cornflower so far. And I wonder what’s coming next of the 27 species in the description – there should be some coreopsis, flax, and bee balm before long. There’s one wide angle image (35mm) to show the scene, but most of these were taken with a 300mm lens.
Nature Diary 
It’s a different species but you’re beginning to look like Texas.
Maybe my backyard does! According to Vermont Wildflower Farm, the poppies are Papaver rhoeas, a nonnative European species, it’s widespread in North America.
I knew those red poppies aren’t native. They do put on quite a show.
beautiful!
Thanks!
Beautiful
Thanks!
These are beautiful images. In the U.K. they are known as the common poppy or corn poppy. I read recently that they have been around since the Iron Age. Unfortunately they are considered a weed and are frequently sprayed with herbicide here. One of my favourite specialist poppies is Papaver rhoeas ‘Cedric Morris.’ Cedric Morris was an artist and plantsman who collected poppies with mutations of colour by the roadside and in fields and propagated them. They are dusky shades of silvery pink, lavender, peach, mauve or white.
I wonder if the UK is as spray-happy with these as the US is with Dandelions?
I think the tide is turning. There are campaigns to re-wild gardens, leave verges by the side of the road and not spray them, or grow plants for pollinators.
Thanks for the kind words about the images. The poppies coming up aren’t all red, there are a few that are variegated and a number that are orange.
Good for you in getting rid of backyard grass. I am trying a plot of clover in a section of mind that is in pretty much full shade. Will likely spread it to other areas. I’d love to have a poppy field!
It’s exciting to have the meadow, and I’m happy to reduce the amount of grass we have, but I wish my native wildflowers had germinated. Ah, well.
So, so lovely!
Thanks. Lemony!
These are beautiful
It’s a beautiful sight, and a pleasure to photograph.
A delightful set of meadows!! Beautiful compositions and colors! I love the third one (After a rain) with the focusing look! So it turned into a nature shoot instead.
Thanks, Lisa! I love hearing which image people prefer in a set like this.
The poppies certainly do “pop” off the screen.
Thanks – there’s something about red that’s appealing, poppies are so vivid.
There’s a place up in Fredericksburg called Wildseed Farms that grows flowers commercially for seed. People travel there to see the fields filled with bluebonnets, but when their poppies are in bloom, it’s a fantastic sight. Native or not, they’re stunning, and one of my favorite flowers. There isn’t one of these photos I’d call a favorite. They’re all beautiful.
I had so hoped to see wood poppies, but these red poppies are a beautiful consolation. And they were exciting to photograph.
My understanding is that with native seed it can take a year or two for them to appear. Some of them need stratification of some sort~soaking in water, freeze/thaw cycles, scarification, even fire! I figure they’ll get what they need by being out in the elements of the garden for a season or two. Fingers crossed! It sounds like a great list of species when they do come up.
And just look at those glorious poppies! Your photos are just beautiful.
Thanks for the hopeful words about the native plants, we’ll see what comes up next year. And thanks for the kind words about my photographs.
A postscript: Vermont Wildflower Farm wrote me that the native wildflowers will need another season or two, a few cycles of freezing and thawing, before I’ll see a bloom. Basically exactly what you said. The cohosh might come up this season, that was the exception.
Oh nice. I particularly like blue cohosh, and only know it from one site here.