Guest author Dan Songster of the California Native Plant Society Orange County Chapter (OCCNPS), shares his horticultural expertise with a monthly article featuring an excellent native plant for your garden. This month’s featured plant is the California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica).

The California Poppy is a perennial wildflower that is often treated as an annual. It likes full sun but can take partial shade inland. Poppies favor well-drained soil but are adaptable to most soil types and are drought tolerant.

The California Poppy is the most well known flower in our state–even school children are taught to recognize this iconic wildflower. Its vivid golden orange color once washed over the hillsides and valleys throughout much of California. Remnants of those long ago flower bonanzas are still seen near the city of Gorman and at various poppy preserves including the well known 1,745-acre Antelope Valley California Poppy Preserve in Los Angeles County. You can also visit them right now at the Golden West College Native Garden in Huntington Beach.

This plant has finely-divided blue green foliage and grows one to two feet tall. The satiny petals form a shallow cup-shaped flower, a perfect place for bees to tumble around in while being covered in pollen. The early Spanish explorers called California Poppies ‘copa de oro‘ meaning ‘cup of gold.’

Some clever people have found that they can extend the blooming season into early summer by cutting plants to a few inches above ground height and watering them after the main blooming period is nearing its finale. A second growth and bloom period follows.

Once planted, there is usually no need to ever seed the garden with poppies again. After the flowers fade, seed pods are formed, containing tiny brown to black seeds, which are scattered in all directions when the pods open with explosive force. In fact, you are likely to find yourself removing extra poppies since these plants can definitely take over a garden. If you plan on growing other native annuals, use the poppy sparingly since it can crowd out other species.

The best place to enjoy this plant is either in the wild lands or in our gardens. The California poppy from our gardens makes a good cut flower for indoor enjoyment. Although they do not last as long as many commercially-grown flowers, young poppy flowers, picked in the cool of the morning and placed in water immediately, often last for several days indoors. What a cheerful addition to a small bouquet! At night, the flowers will close and then open again in the day’s light, just like in the garden.

Additional Information: The California Poppy was selected as the state flower by the California State Floral Society in December 1890. Other native flowers under consideration at the time were the Mariposa Lily (Calochortus), and the Matililija Poppy (Romneya). The California Poppy won by a landslide. Eventually, in 1903, the California state legislature officially declared Eschscholzia californica as the state flower, and April 6 is designed as the official California Poppy Day.

Naming: Adelbert von Chamisso, naturalist aboard the Russian exploring ship Rurick, named the species. The Rurick visited Alaska and California in 1816 under the command of Lieutenant Otto von Kotzebue. Chamisso named the California poppy Eschscholzia californica in honor of J.F. Eschscholtz, the ship’s surgeon and entomologist (note that he accidentally left the “t” out of Eschscholtz’s name).

Invasive?: What is good here may not be welcome in all parts of the world. Although Eschscholzia californica is native to western North American, it has reportedly naturalized in many parts of the world, including India, Chile, Argentina, Australia, and South Africa. The California poppy is even considered invasive in some parts of the United States outside of its home range. Ironically, it has been displaced in large areas of its original habitat, such as Southern California, by more invasive exotic species such as mustard and annual grasses.

Note from the blogger: If you have trouble growing poppies, consider waiting to broadcast poppy seeds the day before a heavy rain. This helps the seeds survive and protects them from hungry birds. If you have a gravel or rocky area, broadcasting seeds in the gravel also protects them from being eaten by birds and wildlife. The poppies will grow in the gravel. This was discovered by the Theodore Payne Foundation after they accidentally spilled poppy seeds into a gravel area and noticed later that poppies were sprouting and blooming where they were dropped.