Last year, after planting bed of daffodils on the hillside, I decided to overlay the daffodils with poppy seed. Now I have planted poppies many times over the years but I’ve not had much success since we began to get other things growing and mulching it all. The poppies seem to like bare earth to get going in. This time I went beyond a few packets. I ordered 2 “packs of poppies” from Wildseed Farms. And as a result we got the best stand of poppies that we’ve had in years. First the daffodils did their thing and then in June and July we were getting many beautiful poppies. And on one of the poppies I found the most beautiful little blue-eyed spider who somehow adapted to a flower that he/she had no reason to expect to be in Maryland.

Poppies flowering after the daffodils in June

Shirley Poppy

California Poppy

Spider with baby blue eyes

I grew up in Southern California and I’ve always had a soft spot for California Poppies. They volunteer along the roadsides and can appear with great abundance in the desert in a year with good rains. I took this picture in Joshua Tree National Monument last year.

California Poppies (Eschscholzia californica) in Joshua Tree National Monument

In addition to enjoying them last year one of my hopes was that they would self seed and come back again along with the daffodils. The weather was just warm enough over Christmas that I noticed the seedling poppies emerging. They are pretty hardy little plants so I’m hopeful that they will survive the freezing weather yet to come.

California Poppy seedling