California Poppy Week

 

Last week was California Poppy Week (every year from May 13 to May 18 since 1996), and April 6 is California Poppy Day. The California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica) is the state flower of our beautiful state. Both California Poppy Day and California Poppy Week promote responsible bahaviour toward our natural resources and a spirit of protection toward them as well as emphasize the value and conservation of natural resources.

The first five photos in this post were taken in March 2019 during the superbloom. At that time we hadn't had a superbloom for years because of the ongoing drought, but the winter of 2018/2019 had gifted us with a good amount of rain. During spring break the Geek and I drove down to Southern California where we experienced the superbloom in Walker Canyon near Lake Elsinore. You can see more pictures and read about our day among the poppies here.

I still remember that day with a big smile on my face. À propos smile - if there is a wildflower that makes me smile it certainly is the California Poppy. It is such a happy flower, and seeing it turning the hills orange is like looking at a beautiful impressionist painting.

However, most years we don't have a superbloom, but the orange dots in the landscape are still lighting up the scenery. Years ago I took this picture in one of our regional parks - isn't it a beautiful sight?

In the wild, California Poppies have all kinds of yellow-orange shades. At the coast they tend to be more yellow with an orange center, while the "true" California Poppy (if you can even say that) features a warm brilliant orange. There are also differently colored California Poppies, however, they don't exist in the wild.

I like the pink ones and have a few of them in the garden.

This pale yellow one turned up in my garden one day and has reseeded every since.

Another favorite is the "Copper Pot".

The earliest I saw a California Poppy bloom was in February. Usually they are in full bloom March to May or June and then start to develop seeds. The seeds are tiny and the plants readily reseed. Once you have them, you usually have them forever. They look lovely shortly before the blooms completely mature to their beauty.

Don't they look like they're wearing hats?

When I started my garden here 13 years ago I put out a good number of seeds just to get it going (I was converting the lawn using the sheet mulching method and couldn't plant a lot in the first year except spreading some seed). Of course not all of the seeds made it to flowers, but many did and years later my front garden looked like this:

I eventually pulled many plants before the development of seeds and by now I have them in smaller drifts which I prefer. These days in May and June, the red poppies are taking over the front garden (pictures will follow in a later post).

I hope this beautiful flower made you smile! Finally, a photo I took when I was driving back from Davis after dropping off my daughter at college, and this one has become my favorite photo I ever took of them. I used this photo to make greeting cards and three of them I want to give to three of my readers. Please let me know in the comments if you'd like one, and if there are more than three people who want a card, I have to roll the dice to decide who will be the lucky ones. Yes, I will also send to Australia or Germany or Canada or...