Opium Poppy Candy Floss Seeds - Papaver somniferum

This Opium Poppy, also called Papaver somniferum paeoniiflorum 'Candy Floss', is an exclusive and recent variety featuring remarkable blooms. This peony-flowering variety displays large, slightly open, very double flowers in summer, whose silky petals boast a subtle, lilac-purple colouring with silver highlights. They sway gently in the wind, at the top of tall stems that emerge from bluish-green foliage. Its flowers are followed by fruit that are very attractive in dried flower bouquets. Sow this undemanding plant, full of grace and elegance, directly in sunny flowerbeds.

The opium poppy 'Candy Floss' is a recent and original horticultural variety, belonging to the Papaveraceae or poppy family. It is derived from Papaver somniferum var. nigrum, which is found in the mountains of Asia, but also in Europe, on limestone soils where poppies usually grow. This plant, which probably originated in the regions between the Mediterranean and Anatolia, has given rise to a multitude of varieties that have long been cultivated for ornamental purposes.

'Candy Floss' has a beautiful, undulating, silver-green foliage with beautifully lobed, elliptical leaves with scalloped margins. From its 30 to 40 cm wide clump of foliage, tall stems emerge from June to August, bearing elegant, solitary, lilac flowers, 80 cm above the ground. They measure 7 to 10 cm in diameter and are very double, made up of numerous, slightly dishevelled petals with a silky sheen. Summer blooms give way to a characteristic fruit, filled with small very ornamental black seeds which take on a slate blue sheen as it dries. Their aspect changes with the light because of the film of crystallized wax that protects their surfaces. Opium poppies have a taproot that is not very resistant to transplanting, so it is best to sow them in place.

Comfortable in sophisticated gardens, in medieval-type gardens and gardens without gardeners, opium poppies make it possible to quickly and effortlessly create oceans of infinitely delicate flowers that seem to dance on the silvery foam of their foliage, creating a stirring spectacle of vivid, dark or pastel colours. Although they are not very long-lasting in bouquets, the flowers of the opium poppy 'Candy Floss' are extremely charming when planted in large groups, in front of tall daisies or the moving leaves of grasses. This annual plant, like the cosmos, has no equivalent for occupying the open sunny spaces between annuals or large perennials such as sunflowers, whose flowers take over later in the season.

Once the flowering period is over, the fruit remains, providing a precious asset for dry bouquets, but also the poppy straw, which is often perceived in more wild areas as a majestic element of the garden or a somewhat enigmatic remnant of summer.