Re: Re: Opium poppies
- Subject: Re: [GWL] Re: Opium poppies
- From: H*@aol.com
- Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 08:31:41 EST
- List-archive: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/private/gardenwriters/>
I was the horticulturist for a large NY park district many moons ago when one of the less educated gardeners discovered that the poppies in several beds that were about 6 feet wide and run a total of about 400 feet long...could produce...DRUGS. He took it upon himself to go to the park commissioners who immediately told him to dig up every last poppy. Well, they had all bloomed, gone relatively dormant...and he dug. The funny part is that he was clueless and in his eradication efforts he had made so many cuts on the existing rootstock that the next year...they came back with a vengeance and of course in much greater numbers. To this day....25 years later...they remain. Oh, and you should see the kids who go into the part to slit the flower heads to get the sap which they then boil down for the opium.....not.
Andrew Messinger
The Hampton Gardener
The Hampton Gardener is a Registered Trade Mark
(Published every Thursday in the Southampton Press)
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