The Mamuro Poppy Field this year

Today, I visited the Mamuro Poppy field for the second time this year. The field which is also called Poppy Happy Square, is normally the largest poppy field in all of Japan. However, this year due to a shortage of poppy seeds in Saitama Prefecture, they grew less than normal. Much less. Instead they grew thousands of Tansy flowers.

Despite growing a lot less than normal, the fields still looked pretty. Especially as this year they had a light blue landscape door among the flowers. Can you make it out in the photo above!? They also have a large area of corncockles, which are beautiful, delicate purple flowers. The tansy flowers were grown among the poppy fields as well as in fields of their own too.

In an average year they grow more than 12 million poppies at the Mamuro Poppy Field. I don't know how many they grew this year, but I would speculate it wasn't even half of that. They didn't grow any California poppies this year, which are the orange ones, just shades of red and pink with a few white here and there.

The festival ended on Sunday, but the poppies are still blooming. Moreover, they are now allowing people pick the poppies for free. But for that reason they might not last long. Would you like to pick some poppies? Check out the article about the free poppy picking here.