The proverb says, \u201cBe careful what you wish for.\u201d\u00a0 For years I wished for more poppies\u2014Papaver– in my garden.\u00a0 The crepe paper flowers are so bright and cheerful, the ferny foliage adds interest even after the flowers have faded and many poppies also boast interesting seed heads.\u00a0 I have had great success with some members of the Papaveraceae family, like little California poppies or Eschscholzia californica. \u00a0In my front border I grow several large Oriental-type poppies\u2014Papaver orientale–and over the years I have planted various annual types.\u00a0 All succeeded for a time, but never gave me the massive, colorful show that I craved.<\/p>\n
Then I acquired a celandine poppy\u2014Stylophorum diphyllum.<\/p>\n
The funny thing is, I don\u2019t remember buying the original plant.\u00a0 This is not to say that I didn\u2019t acquire it somewhere, pop it into the ground in front of one of the blue hydrangeas and forget about it.\u00a0 That has happened before.\u00a0 However, I have never found a plant tag near it, which suggests that it might be an example of poppy serendipity.<\/p>\n
No matter how it appeared, my first celandine was a revelation.\u00a0 If you are a little myopic or perhaps a bit fanciful, the deeply dissected foliage of this eastern North American native plant has roughly the same lobed configuration as oak leaves.\u00a0 Celandine leaves are medium green to gray\/green and a little soft or fuzzy.\u00a0 The pale yellow flower buds are, ovoid, typically poppy-like and hairy as well.\u00a0 When the four-petaled flowers burst forth, they are bold. golden yellow, each one like a little sun atop its stalk.\u00a0 The plants only stand about 12 inches tall, but if you have a patch of flowering celandines, you can spot them easily from a distance.<\/p>\n
Celandines also have bright yellow sap, which was used as a dye source by Native Americans.\u00a0 In fact, that yellow sap is one way to distinguish the American native celandine poppy from its cousin, Chinese celandine poppy\u2014Stylophorum lasiocarpum.\u00a0 The two species are very similar in appearance, but the stems of Chinese celandine are filled with red-orange fluid, rather than yellow.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good idea not to let any celandine sap drip onto clothes, as it may be hard to remove.<\/p>\n
My original celandine settled in several years ago and went about the business of fulfilling its biological imperative, apparently dropping quantities of extremely viable seed.\u00a0 Now, I can\u2019t even be sure of the number of celandine plants that shine forth in my garden in mid to late spring, but it is probably up to about thirty.\u00a0 Young celandines have also appeared at least 20 feet from the original, which attests to the fact that birds most likely find the seed appealing.\u00a0 Deer, however, will avoid celandines, which is good news for all of us who live with daily incursions by Mr. Antlers and his many relatives.<\/p>\n
Some sources also allude to the fact that celandines can \u201cspit\u201d their seeds when the hairy seed pods burst open and hurl them outward from the plants.\u00a0 For fastidious gardeners, this may be a problem, but I find the \u201cvolunteers\u201d easy to remove, either for transplanting, gift-giving or composting.<\/p>\n
Like many spring bloomers, celandines, also known as \u201cwood poppies\u201d or \u201cyellow poppies\u201d, hang around for awhile after the seed has been dropped, but then fade away until the following spring.\u00a0 While they are with us, they are somewhat drought tolerant, thriving in partial to nearly full shade, which makes them a great addition to less-than-bright spaces.<\/p>\n
The prolific reproductive habits of the celandine poppy must be Nature\u2019s way of compensating for the fact that one of its closest relatives, the gorgeous blue Himalayan poppy, is impossible to grow in many places without benefit of a cool greenhouse.\u00a0 The yellow poppies are also related to bloodroot or Sanguinaria, which shares the brightly colored sap.\u00a0 If you have a woodland, wildflower or native plant garden, the two would look lovely together.\u00a0 They are also a nice complement for blue\/purple-flowered bugleweed or Ajuga reptans, which enjoys the same shady conditions and blooms around the same time.<\/p>\n
If you crave poppies, like yellow-flowered plants and\/or need a little something for a shady spot, celandine poppies are your ticket.\u00a0 Find them at Niche Gardens, 1111 Dawson Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, (919) 967-0078, www.nichegardens.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Free print catalog on request.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The proverb says, \u201cBe careful what you wish for.\u201d\u00a0 For years I wished for more poppies\u2014Papaver– in my garden.\u00a0 The crepe paper flowers are so bright and cheerful, the ferny foliage adds interest even after the flowers have faded and many poppies also boast interesting seed heads.\u00a0 I have had great success with some members … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[1626,1627,1632,1633,1628,1625,1631,1629,1630],"class_list":["post-2106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring","tag-celandine-poppy","tag-greater-celandine","tag-papaver","tag-papaveraceae","tag-spring-floweirng-plants","tag-stylophorum-diphyllum","tag-stylophorum-lasiocapum","tag-wood-poppy","tag-yellow-poppy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2107,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions\/2107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}