Poppies In My Garden

Last year I received poppy seeds in trades and never having grown them before didn't know what to expect. I was told to just scatter them on the ground in the winter and in the spring I would have more poppies than I knew what to do with. The blooms and colors were amazing and there were some poppies that I wish I had labeled and saved seeds from more carefully. I got a lot of comments on them in the garden and even some quizzical looks from people who wanted to know why I was growing poppies. Since I'm gardening in an urban area I sometimes played dumb and pretended they weren't poppies and say would they were something else.

This year I got a lot more doubles or what look like peony poppies and I've labeled a few so that I could just grow those next year. I wonder how (or if) they hybridize because the bees been having a field day collecting pollen from the blooms. The bumblebees seem to be attracted to the dark red blooms and it's fun to watch them crash onto a bloom, scattering petals and collect pollen furiously before flying off to the next bloom where they chase away the honey bees and the hover flies.

In the morning before most people were awake I got up early and tried to capture the event. I've uploaded a video of some bees to YouTube and if all goes well you can see the clip below. If not try this link.