Poppies grow rampant here in Northern California. We see the orange, California-native poppies bloom throughout the spring and summer, along roadsides and in fields. Reseeding themselves, they come up year after year.
Recently we’ve also spotted the larger, more spectacular, non-native Papaver poppy:
Our neighbor Sarah saved us some seed pods from her purple-colored Papaver poppies:
When you shake them, you hear the poppy seeds jingle around inside.
Be careful though! They easily spill out of these holes in the side of the pod. A simple, elegant way to distribute seeds, relying on wind or animals to shake the pods.
We’re excited to sew them in our garden! Thank you, Sarah!
by Lois Ehlert (vibrant illustrations and a simple story depicting the process of planning, planting, and picking flowers in a garden that children can easily relate to)
by Kevin Henkes (an imaginative tale about what a little girl would have in her very own garden, such as morning glories that stayed open all night, jellybean trees, flowers that grew back as soon as you picked them (above), and all carrots would be invisible because “I don’t like carrots.”)
by Brooklyn Botanic Garden (a must-read book for family gardeners, full of gardening activities introducing nature’s cycles and earth’s ecology)
(not directly about gardening per se but a beautifully illustrated alphabet book about fruits and vegetables; great inspiration for deciding what to plant in the garden!)