A well-dressed woodland garden usually has some yellow celandine poppies in bloom in the spring. Their appealing cup-shaped flowers and attractive grey-green foliage blend well with other spring-blooming perennial favorites such as Virginia bluebells, lily of the valley, and bleeding heart.
The poet William Wordsworth must have admired them too. He wrote:
Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies;
Let them live upon their praises;
Long as there's a sun that sets,
Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are violets,
They will have a place in story:
There's a flower that shall be mine,
‘Tis the little celandine.
Ere a leaf is on a bush
In the time before the thrush
Has a thought about her nest,
Thou wilt come with half a call,
Spreading out thy glossy breast
Like a careless prodigal;
Telling tales about the sun
When we've little warmth, or none.
Think about Wordsworth when you spot your first shiny yellow celandine flower this spring.