If I were to design my personal all-inclusive June fabric, one
of its highlights would be the brilliant poppy blossoms. A
roadside ditch just north of our place, wide and deep enough to
avoid the unnecessarily-destructive swaths of the county mowers,
has several dozen of what I assume are brilliant orange oriental
poppies. We have no idea who planted these hardy perennials
years ago but their annual predictable and welcome appearance are
always one of our monthly favorites.
The famous poem, In Flanders Fields, immediately comes
to my mind whenever these awesome flowers come into view. The
poem was written by Lieut. Col. John McCrae, a member of the
first Canadian contingent who died in France on January 28, 1918
after four years of service on the western front.
He wrote: "In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between
the crosses, row on row, That mark our place: and in the sky The
larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns
below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn,
saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders
fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing
hands we throw The torch: be yours to hold it high. If ye break
faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In
Flanders fields." This message is as fitting today as when
it was written 86 years ago.
Yesterday a small group of stood at the site of the old main
lodge overlooking the huge garden at Toft Point. Adorning the
east end of the long-abandoned garden plot, near where the back
door was located, grew a perennial patch of blazing orange
oriental poppies. Suddenly a thought came to mind. Perhaps Miss
Emma Toft planted those poppies years ago as a living memorial to
her boyfriend who was killed in France during World War I and
whose body lies buried in Flanders Field.
The same general thought came to mind a few weeks ago when
Charlotte and I, along with our dear 95-year-old (young!) friend,
Ann Markin, hiked for several hours at the great Chicago
Botanical Gardens. One of the most colorful highlights of the
exhilarating outing, shortly after we returned from touring the
incredibly wonderful Japanese Gardens there, was to come upon a
hillside teeming with several thousand poppies at the peak of
their color. They produced a scene that will be fondly etched in
our memories for years to come.
There is another kind of poppy that strongly stirs memories of
my boyhood in Kewaunee, a predominantly Bohemian community at the
time. It was around this time of year that a sizable portion of
the gardens of many of the Bohemian families came into bloom.
Being fond of various pastries, especially the famous poppy seed
kolaces (KO-lotch-es), the large soft pink blossoms of the tall,
stately, opium poppy decorated the scene and would, come fall,
provide talented bakers with the valuable seeds of these much-revered plants.
Yes, opium is made from the milky juice of the opium poppy,
Papaver somniferous, but the dried seeds have no narcotic
properties. There was an old Bohemian bit of wisdom that a child
could be induced to sleep more quickly if he or she were fed a
tablespoon of poppy seeds. Some of the old-timers maintained
that this would work only if you asked the child to count the
seeds!
My folks grew a patch of poppy seed plants for many years in
our huge backyard garden. I distinctly recall my dad’s
frustration over the goldfinches (wild canaries he called them)
and their great fondness for the ripening seeds. He fastened a
stuffed great-horned owl to the top of a tall stepladder thinking
that the fierce creature would frighten the birds away. When
this failed to work, my brothers and I had to take turns guarding
the patch and chasing the hungry goldfinches away.
At the end of the growing season the pods had to be cut from
the stems, put into large muslin sacks and hung from the garage
rafters to thoroughly dry. Finally each of the hardened pods had
to be cut in half, the seeds shaken out, cleaned and stored in an
old cloth five-pound sugar sack. It was my job on many Saturday
mornings to grind a few cups of the poppy-seeds in the food
grinder in preparation for my mother’s baking of several dozen
ambrosial kolaches, most containing the sweetened poppy-seed
mixture, others filled with a combination of cottage cheese and
prunes, another Bohemian favorite.
My old Taylor’s Gardening Encyclopedia says that, along with
hundreds of botanical varieties and hybrids, there are only four
species commonly cultivated, all remarkably distinct. One is the
opium poppy, a common and variable annual whose flowers are the
largest of any annual species. The so-called poppy of Flander’s
Field is the corn poppy of Europe. It has smaller flowers and is
quite brilliant where it often grows wild in the fields and
ditches. The Shirley train is considered to be the best.
The third species, the glory of the arctic region, is the
Iceland poppy, ranging over an immense territory. It too is
widely variable as to color, mainly orange, red and white, and
can be an excellent cut-flower especially when properly cut in
early morning.
The fourth species, and perhaps the most commonly seen growing
as a hardy, vibrant perennial, is the Oriental poppy. Many
gardeners feel that there is no plant more brilliant in late
spring or early summer than this large-flowered beauty with
silken petals and flaming colors.
Not only lilacs but also these eye-catching poppies decorate
many old homesteads today, bringing back important and cherished
memories of bygone days.
"In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row..."
This column appeared in the Door County Advocate
on 06/26/2004.
© Copyright 2004 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.
