Maybe there should be a whole site devoted to poppies. I find myself skipping over them because I’ve taken so many pictures of poppies already. Here is one reaching up through a maze of weeds. Just catching the light. I see poppies on almost every walk. Four or five months ago I saw someone digging up the poppies in his front yard along the fence. I was horrified. He said not to worry and showed me his method. He had purchased plants at the nursery for the space along the fence, but he wasn’t going to fill the space. He left lots of room. He dug up the old poppies, knocked the seeds out on the sidewalk, swept them into a pan, and sprinkled them in the spaces. “They’ll be back,” he said. He also sprinkled seeds into a long window planter, and the planter is now overflowing with poppies. In short, he managed the poppies in his yard, and the yard is as beautiful as a casual garden could be.

My neighbor, who helped plant the patio, bills himself as a Master Gardener, a title he achieved while working at a nursery many years ago. He has a very selective range of appreciation based on something I haven’t quite figured out yet. He’s very good at some things, but not good at others. He pulled a weed eater out of his van about six months ago and cleared all the weeds that were growing on the front side of the building. About half of those weeds were poppies. But they were weeds. They weren’t beautiful, fortuitous weeds, just weeds. I came home and they were all gone. But in six months they have all returned. There may even be more. They are pernicious weeds that people around here give all the freedom they require. And the weeds return that favor with dense patches of beautiful blooms.I find it very difficult to see a poppy like the one above and not stop to admire it.