Graham Porter’s gardening: Best of the bunch - California Poppy

Jul 4 2009 by Our Correspondent, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

ESCHSCHOLTZIA Californica – no guesses as to where this one comes from.

The California Poppy, the State Flower of California, is a true hardy annual that can be sown in spring to flower profusely in the first summer.

In mild winters, seedlings will survive and can start to flower by mid-May and so you can experiment with a late summer sowing in September to get established seedlings ready for the ravages of winter but there are no guarantees.

It has very simple tastes as it comes from poor coastal soils on the West Coast of North America.

Given plenty of sunshine and sufficient water to get it underway, it will penetrate the soil with its powerful tap root, used in the sandy soils of the coast to source water from deep in the soil.

As a herb, it was used by native Americans as a mild narcotic and to relieve toothache. It is also known to help with nervous tension, anxiety, insomnia and incontinence. The whole plant can be harvested and dried for use in infusions and tinctures.

Nowadays, there are plenty of cultivars to select that provide different flower colours from the species’ normal orange-yellow, from almost pure white to the deepest purple-violet.

Take a look through the seed catalogues or the seed racks in garden centres. If allowed to self-seed around your garden, as this member of the poppy family (Papaveraceae) will do, named varieties will gradually return to their parentage and revert to the orange-yellow flowers.