A few years ago, on a cool autumn day, I was cleaning out the garage and came across a forgotten box of seeds. I organized the packets I wanted to plant in the garden, and decided to clear out the bin to start fresh. There were a variety of loose seeds, dirt and dried plant parts at the bottom, so I walked out in the yard to a spot where only weeds grew, and nonchalantly dumped the bin. A few months later, poppy sprouts pushed through the moist soil of my suburban backyard. Amaranth and sorghum seedlings showed up too, but poppies were by far the most successful plant of that bin clean-out.
To me, our native California poppy symbolizes hope, beauty, abundance and perseverance.
To be honest, when the spouts came up in the winter that first year, it took me a minute to remember how they got there. It was such a casual act of turning the bin upside down and tapping the sides, that it really didn’t register that I was “planting a native garden”. I admittedly did not notice poppy seeds in the bin, nor tend them once they were in the ground, but I joyfully celebrated when I saw the first sprouts! I called my children outside with such ecstatic whoops and hollers that they were disappointed and confused when I showed them the reason for my exclamations.
Small greyish-green feathery leaves didn’t mean much to them at the time. But when the first blossoms opened in the spring, they finally mirrored my excitement! We went to check on the “patch of poppies” regularly, noticing many species of pollinators flying between flowers, climbing on the pollen that turned their legs orange before flying off again.
As the season warmed to summer, the plants grew seed pods, and slowly blended in with the dry brown soil. Our delight in seeing the bright orange blossoms quickly changed into excitement for popping the seed pods & gathering seeds.
See for yourself how poppies pop!
The blooms that first year were so sweet – like a visual hug or high-five from the earth every time we walked outside. Watching beauty grow from these tiny seeds was marvelous. That first summer, the children and I gathered a modest bag of poppy seeds. Later in the autumn, when the skies looked like rain, we walked out to the yard with our saved poppy seeds from earlier in the year, and sprinkled them on all the barren parts of the yard to see if we could grow more the next year.
And they grew the second year! So we saved seeds again.
Same for the third year.
Our patch of poppies spread out, creating a backyard superbloom! Our bounty of seeds had become more than we could use. We shared seeds with friends, scattered some at Big Oak Canyon, and saved the rest for our community.
So this year, as a token of appreciation to the community of donors who support Earthroots Field School, we are sending a packet of poppy seeds gathered from my backyard to everyone who makes a contribution of $25 or more before December 31, 2025.
I want you to feel the joy of seeing native poppies where you live – but more than the beauty, I want you to feel that relationship to the seasons, the pollinators, and the areas around your home that are waiting to bloom.
