…these poppies last flowered. Since then, they have lain undisturbed in the soil. Last summer work started on the last section of the Bicester ringroad – now, the verges are blood red with colour…
I think I make this one an LJ icon…
…these poppies last flowered. Since then, they have lain undisturbed in the soil. Last summer work started on the last section of the Bicester ringroad – now, the verges are blood red with colour…
I think I make this one an LJ icon…
gadzooks
So these flowers are over 100 years old? They come from 100 year old seed? Can they really last that long? That’s pretty astounding.
Is there not a possibility that someone scattered seeds there recently?
Re: gadzooks
After the ground has been recently (and seriously) disturbed, it is common for poppies to explode back into life. Yes they can lie dormant in the ground for many hundreds of years.
Take the first world war, and all the fields in France and Belgium? A year after fighting ceased, the fields were carpeted in red (like the colour of the blood that had been spilled there) – hence the poppy as the symbol for rememberance.
They are also linked with corn fields (particularly in history) where with crop rotation you might have a year or two of lieing fallow, then a major ploughing and a sewing … or after a cottage destroyed by flower is pulled down to be rebuilt, and the foundations explode in colour…