My annual spring love affair with the poppies has ended as it usually does, with my yanking them up and consigning them to the compost.
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| Look at the difference in the number of blooms compared to my last post! |
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| Notice the manky foliage! |
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| They've struggled valiantly to hang on despite too little water and too much heat. But there's just no denying that the poppies are sloppy. |
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| That's a mighty big pile of poppies you have there, ma'am. |
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Most years, I'm obsessive about letting the poppies languish in their mankiness until the seed pods begin to rattle, signaling that they're ready to cut and collect. Most years, I cut off each and every seed pod and save them for the next year. This is not most years. Between the seeds that fell before or during the harvesting process, and the seeds that I scattered last winter in various beds, I was positively overrun by poppies this year. I spent nearly two days thinning out the seedlings in the corner bed to give the plants more room to grow, and they were still too crowded. So I have been positively merciless in my poppy removal process the last few days, consigning the majority of the pods and stalks to the trash can. My ever helpful garbage guys dumped five 32-gallon trash cans full of poppies into the compactor and just like that, they were gone.
Comments
I was skimming through some earlier posts I missed here and saw the note that a passerby left you. What a thoughtful gesture on her part, and it's wonderful to know that your hard work is appreciated. We sometimes don't realize how gardens can affect others as well as ourselves.