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Well being out and about I have seen some of the most amazing poppy fileds this week... I don't remember seing filds this aboundent as a child. Do the farmers actually plant the poppies now?

Ooooh Poppies pleasing to the eye and soothing to the soul.

I hope ya got a photo SE!

more than one ...








and one I played with a tad



Well you did ask ... giggles so do they get planted ???

Oh, I LOVE seeing fields of poppies! It always cheers me up and makes me smile, it's such a beautiful and happy looking flower! I've got some pink ones the size of my fist in the back garden

Is it anything to do with fields being set aside during crop rotation? I think there is generally more awareness now about encouraging bees and bugs in general and I've seen more fields given over to meadow flowers in the last couple of years.

Thats what I was thinking ... only I never see a farmer to ask... they seem to go into hideing

AMAZING!!!

No, they don't get planted - they're just there in the soil. Poppy seeds can survive in the soil for years and years and years without germinating - and they won't germinate if they're disturbed. So, if a piece of land is ploughed regularly - no poppies. But you do get them in the undisturbed bits at the edges of fields and, if the ploughing stops for whatever reason, up come the poppies all over the place. This is precisely why the poppy is the emblem of Remembrance Day - when the guns fell silent at the end of WW1 and the battlefields were not being constantly shelled, northern France and Belgium became suddenly and literally covered with poppies.

Gorgeous, aren't they?

Mike

I thought it was the other way round - they grow like crazy on disturbed soil. That's why you see them all the time on the verges of new roads or where roadworks etc have been done to the sides of roads - anywhere where the soil has been disturbed (but not for agricultural use). Least that's how they grow in France. They look gorgeous anyway although your played with photo is a bit too bright and hurt my eyes!

MKG wrote:No, they don't get planted - they're just there in the soil. Poppy seeds can survive in the soil for years and years and years without germinating - and they won't germinate if they're disturbed. So, if a piece of land is ploughed regularly - no poppies. But you do get them in the undisturbed bits at the edges of fields and, if the ploughing stops for whatever reason, up come the poppies all over the place. This is precisely why the poppy is the emblem of Remembrance Day - when the guns fell silent at the end of WW1 and the battlefields were not being constantly shelled, northern France and Belgium became suddenly and literally covered with poppies.

Gorgeous, aren't they?

Mike

Thankyou dear... curiosity satisfied

Millymollymandy wrote:I thought it was the other way round - they grow like crazy on disturbed soil. That's why you see them all the time on the verges of new roads or where roadworks etc have been done to the sides of roads - anywhere where the soil has been disturbed (but not for agricultural use). Least that's how they grow in France. They look gorgeous anyway although your played with photo is a bit too bright and hurt my eyes!

Yes that was my understanding too. The poppies only germinate after a disturbance.
The huge amount of disturbance of shelling led to the fields of poppies.

They are fantastic pictures.

Well, well - MMM and Boboff are correct. Just shows how my brain's getting addled with age!

However, the same point applies - the poppy seeds are lying there in the soil, waiting for the chance to germinate.

Mike