Poppies remind us of service, sacrifice
Published 4:36 pm, Thursday, May 23, 2013
Monday marks our nation's 145th Memorial Day, a day set aside to honor and remember every man and woman in uniform who gave a life while serving our great country.
But it was in 1915, during World War I, following the second battle of Ypres, in the Flanders region of Belgium, that the Earth herself chose to pay tribute to fallen soldiers, and it's this gift of nature that has inspired today's column.
The Flanders poppy, also known as Papaver rhoeas and red corn poppy, is a rich, vivid red-colored poppy that has for centuries grown wild throughout Europe and has now begun to naturalize itself throughout the United States. The poppy has become associated with ceremonies honoring the war dead on Memorial Day in the U.S. and on Remembrance Day in Britain, Canada and Australia.
This is the same poppy that was made famous by the poem penned back in 1915 by a Canadian soldier, Maj. John McCrae, as he sat and looked out over a field of red poppies blooming following the death of his friend on the battlefield.
The Flanders poppy is a self-seeding annual in our area, if the flower is allowed to mature on the plant until dried. To begin your own, you will want to purposely sow the seeds a few years in a row to give them a start, then allow the plants to reseed themselves. They can be purchased through online seed houses or come spring off seed racks.
Poppy seeds have a very hard shell that allows them to lie dormant for years; the Flanders poppy can wait 10 years for the correct environmental conditions, thus the recommendation to sow a few years straight before relying on the poppy itself to germinate through reseeding. Since the Flanders poppy is an annual, sow the seeds in midspring; perennial and biennial poppies can be sown in the fall.
Simply broadcast them over loosened soil, tamp lightly into the soil but do not purposely cover. Germination will take place in about 14 to 20 days.
Poppies are not fans of being relocated, due to their taproot, and even the most careful of gardeners finds moving them a challenge. It's recommended they be started directly in the garden by seeds or purchased potted and then planted; digging and moving is a wasted effort. They require full sun and excellent drainage.
Watch for their bristly foliage to emerge. Cultivate extremely carefully around them, if at all. The flowers top 15-inch stems. After their blooming, the perennial varieties will die back and go dormant for the heat of the summer.
A papery-looking flower, they are not great vase flowers, but can provide weeks of brilliant color along roadsides and in gardens. Wildflower seed mixtures often add this poppy for its color.
Due to their ability to remain dormant for a decade or more, it's believed that the Flanders poppy seeds were present in the soil, but once disturbed by the digging of soldier graves they were moved upward in the soil and the following spring came into bloom. Their symbolism endures, as does the famed poem by McCrae that begins:
''In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row.''