Opium Poppy

Bursting flower of the Opium Poppy

I was once a gardener of the Mayland's Memorial Rose Gardens.
I had taken over from the old Rose Gardener Alan Bishop.
His brother, Fred Bishop, was my forman and both of the Bishops were old school gardeners.
Twice per year we planted as many as 5 thousand annuals.
And periodically amid the spring season, amid the calendula and petunia the odd opium poppy was known to reveal itself.
Now, right next door was a police station, and getting along as I did with the old police sergeant (who also liked gardens and gardening when not arresting drunks and hobos hidden there in) had an interest in what I grew there.
On spying the garden's opium poppies he researched the possibility of whether they were legal.
To our surprise they were legal, at least having half a dozen seemed ok.
So it was that he had a vase with some on his front counter...
And so, now these many years since those poppies of Maylands everytime I see the ones in my mother's garden I remember the old police sergeant and the joke we shared.