Flanders Poppies

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Back in April, we had a memorial for Pops, Melisa’s dad (LINK). At the memorial, we had packets available for anyone who attended, and part of the contents were seed packets of Flanders Poppies and Forget-Me-Nots.

We planted ours and the Forget-Me-Nots have already appeared on the blog a few times (with bees on them). Today I’m showcasing the Flanders Poppies.

For them who might be interested in the name, here’s a Wikipedia LINK about Flanders Poppies.

I know few people will click on the link, so let me tell you that the name comes from the poem by John McCrae entitled In Flanders Field<<link. It’s because of that poem that the showy flowers have become associated with — and are named — remembrance (Remembrance poppies).

From Wikipedia:

The red poppies that McCrae referred to {in his poem} had been associated with conflict since the Napoleonic Wars when a writer of that time first noted how the poppies grew over the graves of soldiers. The damage done to the landscape in Flanders during the battle greatly increased the lime content in the surface soil, leaving the poppy as one of the few plants able to grow in the region.

Inspired by “In Flanders Fields”, American professor Moina Michael resolved at the war’s conclusion in 1918 to wear a red poppy year-round to honor the soldiers who had died in the war. She also wrote a poem in response called “We Shall Keep the Faith“

The wearing of poppies in the days leading up to Remembrance Day remains popular in many areas of the Commonwealth of Nations, particularly Great Britain, Canada and South Africa and in the days leading up to ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand.

If you do a quick search of Remembrance Day images, you pretty much get nothing but photos of poppies (LINK).

We weren’t sure they were going to bloom, but they did, and a few are still blooming.

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