Dusky Rose

'Dusky Rose' is Renee's Garden's single-colour rose selection of California poppy, and being one shade rather than a blend is exactly what distinguishes it from the sherbet mixes the same company sells. The blossoms are a deep, smoky rose that catches light through the thin petal tissue and reads as iridescent rather than flat pink. Petal form is the classic silky four-petalled cup of the species, held on wiry stems well clear of the leaves. It earns its place where you want a solid drift of one uncommon colour, particularly against silver foliage or in a cottage planting where the species orange would fight everything around it. Rated hardy to USDA zone 8, it is grown as a spring annual in colder gardens and self-sows if pods are allowed to shed.