Opium Poppy, Papaver somniferum
Opium poppy gardenista — a quick note to anchor this piece for readers.
Opium poppy gardenista: Quick notes
The notoriety of Papaver somniferum, the “sleep-inducing poppy,” is only partly to do with its outlaw family.
Opium poppies are grown for their edible seeds and for pharmaceutical uses. The type that you see in gardens—whether your own or in the medicinal section of a botanic garden—is the legal relation, not toxic enough to be useful to anyone. The subversive beauty of P. somniferum is firmly rooted in its fabulous color and texture, and the way it can turn a vegetable patch into a Dutch painting.
Photography by Jim Powell for Gardenista.
Above: Self-seeded opium poppy that has not been weeded out of a fennel, in my garden.
More correctly but prosaically called “breadseed poppy,” Papaver somniferum is an unknown quantity when in bud. A couple of nearby seeds may result in shades of profound magenta and desirable pink, like the wild opium poppies in our vegetable garden, at the top of this page. On the other hand, they could germinate into the tawdriest hues of clapped-out mauve, in which case you are perfectly within your rights to pull them out.
Above: Double varieties of black opium poppy include Papaver somniferum ‘Black Beauty’ and ‘Black Peony’.
This is the great thing about self-seeding plants: If you edit them, they look purposeful. If you don’t, then they are weeds, run amok. Opium poppies grow well with other poppies, seen here, above, at the Oxford Botanic Garden, in the medicinal plant beds. But it’s more fun to allow them to pop up wherever they like. In soil that is rich, like a vegetable garden, they will grow stout and tall, with handsome glaucous foliage and green-gray seed heads on strong stalks.
Opium poppy gardenista comes up here to connect ideas for clarity.
Above: Single deep black opium poppies at Oxford Botanic Garden.
Small note — Great step-by-step — I’ll give this a go this weekend. Saving it.