Altar frontal for Ipsden Ch. Oxon: Opium Poppy (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)
In my last post I rather clumsily justified my inclusion of the Canada Lily on the altar frontal by guessing that some garden somewhere in Ipsden was sure to be growing it (when the real reason was that I couldn’t resist embroidering such a fabulous flower). No doubt you’ll be thinking I’ll be making the same claim for the opium poppy which it is true is not known for being a Chiltern stalwart – indeed in one of last week’s Sunday colour supplements a recount of running the Ridgeway had the writer taken aback by coming across fields of sturdy opium poppies as he ran along Grim’s Ditch – our neck of the woods.
Opium Poppy, Papaver somniferum (photo: John Scourse)
But the truth is it is now a local cash crop that for some years now has done very well for our farmers. It has the additional benefit that for a very few weeks around the end of June it is stunningly beautiful, as if a pale mauve blanket has been draped over the swell and dip of a chalk landscape caught in a drowsy mmid summer snooze. Last year the field behind the vicarage grew poppies and for a couple of weeks, when you opened the curtains in the morning it was quite disorientating – almost as if it had snowed in the night .
Ipsden vicarage garden with opium poppy field beyond (late June 2014)
See here (at the end of my post ‘Harvest’ for 2012) for more about opium poppies as a commercial crop.
Ipsden vicarage garden with view to opium poppy field beyond (late June 2014)
Altar frontal for Ipsden Ch. Oxon: Opium Poppy (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)
5 Comments
I read the linked post Mary and can’t get the image of the happy newly weds, waist deep in poppies, out of my mind. Very Tess of the D’Urbervilles! X
It’s such a stunning image – perhaps I’ll ask whether they’d mind me using the picture – editing it with their heads cut off sounds a bit brutal!
I love your Opium Poppy, such a beautiful colour to grace your altar frontal. I used to live in a house in Perth (WA) which sprouted a dramatic crop of Opium Poppies each year. Apparently the old man who lived across the laneway at the back had brought the seeds down from Up North in his younger years (must have been in the 30’s). He had worked with the Afghan cameleers out in the desert. Well, the seeds must have zoomed over his fence and the lane way into my garden and flourished. An interesting snippet revealing some history of this amazing country.
I forgot to say that I was unaware of the commercial crops grown in England – what a sight it must be when they are all in flower!
How interesting to hear about these glorious poppies in Australia. As a commercial crop they are quite new here where they’ve been grown for between 5-10 years. They are in full flower for about 2 weeks but are glorious during that time, especially on the gently bosomy chalk landscape as it sighs down to the River Thames.
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[…] more about opium poppies see here & here (half-way through my post on harvest if you want to know about it as cash […]
[…] Poppy update: Sadly the fields of Ipsden will no longer shimmer with the brief flowering of the opium poppy (see photograph – a scattering of snow in June?). Last week, the farmer we stayed with (who […]