White Linen California poppies

For the second year in a row, we have countless white-flowering California poppies along the edge of the sidewalk bed. The original inspiration came from the Walnut Creek garden of landscaper designer Cricket Riley who had a sea of Eschscholzia californica ‘Buttermilk’ in her front yard when I visited two years ago.

‘White Linen’ California poppies in our sidewalk bed

Last fall, just like the fall before, I sowed thousands of seeds of a cultivar called ‘White Linen’. (I couldn’t find ‘Buttermilk’, but ‘White Linen’ is close enough.) I’d bought a package of 5000 seeds and gave about half to my friend Kyle. I don’t know how many seeds germinated, but there are plenty of poppies now. I wouldn’t want any more, because they do swallow up everything in their path. 

I love the richness these poppies bring to the garden and plan to do the same next year. I could collect seeds off this year’s crop, but I don’t like the look of hundreds (thousands?) of bloomed out poppies so I’ll remove them after they’re done flowering and simply buy more seeds in the fall.

The cream-colored flowers go well with just about anything growing nearby. I love the regular California poppies, too, but I feel their orange flowers are a bit too intense in a garden as small as ours.

California poppies need full sun to flower well. The flowers open in response to sunlight and close in the evening. This behavior is called nyctinasty (word of the day!).

On cloudy days the flowers remain closed.

Nothing says spring quite like California poppies. Ours make me smile every time I walk into the garden. They have the same effect on passers-by.

And they make great photographic subjects...

...even when closed:

They also move gracefully in the breeze:

The seeds for our ‘White Linen’ poppies came from Outsidepride:

Outsidepride also has a variety of other colors, including yellow, red, and purple, as well as varieties with semi-double flowers and frilled petals.

Growing tips:

• California poppies prefer poor, well-drained soil. In rich loam, they grow to huge proportions but don’t flower much. In our garden, sowing the seeds along the edge of our sidewalk bed where the soil dries out quickly works well.
  
• No supplemental water is needed. They have a taproot that goes down 12-18 inches.
• California poppies bloom best in full sun (6+ hours per day). In shadier situations, they look sparse and ragged and produce virtually no flowers.

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