"gentlegreen" wrote in
message k...

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Mike Lyle wrote:

Way back, a Palestinian friend, who'd trained in agri in Turkey and
lived next-door to a commissioned officer in the Jordanian Police, very
much enjoyed telling the neighbour exactly what he, the neighbour, had
growing by his front door. The ossifer had no idea..!

It's not a rare casual here, and is ubiquitous in hotter climates.
If you want to boggle a parochial Californian gardener, tell him
that Papaver somniferum is a common garden plant in the UK :-)


I had a front garden full of opium poppes last year - from a dried flower
arrangement I threw out a couple of years ago and I mused on the irony.
There's a chemist round the corner and addicts walk past my house all day
to
get their methodone. I doubt any of them know where Heroin comes from ....

Even when I chopped it all down and there was a stack of poppy straw, no
one
took any interest ..

I'm not surprised they grow poppies in afghanistan ... the self-seeding is
exponential .. and last summer I noticed opium poppies appearing all over
town - I can only surmise that poppy seed must get in with wild bird food
people put out.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Papaver somniferum is readily available from all and any seedsme/an.
It is a valuable garden flower and comes in many vars. Single and double.
Once sown it self~seeds with abandom but is never a nuisance. The seeds can
remain dormant for decades as can Nicotiana and of course the 'Flanders'
poppy.. The opium content, in our climate, has been shown to be less than
negligable~ though it might be a good idea not to be seen growing acres with
intent~ and scored heads!!.Would be pointless and asking for attention.
Opium comes from the sap within the green capsule[fruit] and harvested by
cutting score marks. Similar to rubber.

However seed growers must do so but probably not in the UK~~ A large
proportion of all our seeds[from UK stock] is imported from more reliable
climates.
Best Wishes Brian.





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