The Poppy Fence

In May the fence that surrounds our front garden turns into "the poppy fence". Usually poppies are growing on both sides of the fence or pushing their heads through the pickets - both "regular" poppies and California poppies.

I had an abundance of re-seeded poppies coming up this spring, so many, indeed, that I had to pull quite a lot of them because I was afraid that they would smother the other flowers. I had to repeatedly do that until I had "islands" of poppies and I thought it would look lovely.

Then the deer came.

Usually, deer don't eat poppies. Every spring they would come into my garden and nibble on the poppies only to never do it again. This year, however, was different. They came back over and over again and filled their bellies with my poppies. The lovely islands were reduced to headless green stumps and some of them were trampled down.

Instead of an abundance of colorful poppies I was afraid not to have any at all. I shouldn't have worried. Poppies are tough little guys. As you can see from my pictures, quite a lot made it - but I certainly didn't have the "Monet painting" I had last year (one of my neighbors called it that way).

I also noticed that the deer didn't eat the breadseed poppies - they are the most beautiful and stunning ones:

These are the ones that I will definitely let reseed again. I'm always happy when I find a plant that the deer don't like. They also don't like scented plants like lavender and salvia of which I have quite a few in the front.

Right next to the gate I had a wonderful bunch of red poppies that made me happy whenever they caught my eye.

This year is the first year that I have matilija poppies - some people call them "fried egg poppies". Their white petals lend a certain glow to the garden.

And no, the deer don't like them either.

I'm linking up to Theresa's "Good Fences" again.