"Natchez Poppy Guy" Strikes Again

ARMED WITH 20 LBS OF ZINNIA SEEDS, FLORAL FANATIC RUNS COLORFULLY AMOK

By James Fox-Smith

Natchez has a Poppy Guy and his name is Gregory Brooking. If you’ve ever taken a walk down through Natchez-Under-the-Hill during spring, you can hardly have failed to notice his work: tens of thousands of Flanders poppies carpeting the steep slope beneath Silver Street, making this particular stretch of Mississippi riverbank one of the most beautiful places in America each April and May. “Yes, I am the Natchez poppy guy,” admitted Brooking, a Silver Street resident who loves using his LSU botany degree to commit random acts of floral largesse. For more than a decade Brooking has planted the swaths of poppies that emerge along Silver Street each spring, “but you have to plant them in October … then weed ‘em all winter,” he explained. “You can have a lovely patch if you work your ass off!” This year, not content to wait until April to start blowing people’s minds, Brooking has struck again. In March he planted twenty pounds of zinnia seeds across another stretch of open ground beneath the Photo by Gail Guido Natchez Bluffs. The result: a vast, free, public cutting garden that has to be seen to be believed.

“Twenty pounds … that’s about 1.7 million seeds I guess,” noted Brooking, who is manager of Duncan Park Golf Course. “And this is zinnias—the best cut flower in the world … it’ll last two weeks in a vase!” His palette: a three-acre stretch of open ground created by the $24 million retaining wall built by the federal government to stop sections of the Natchez bluffs from falling into the river. When the Feds returned a couple of years ago to chop down all the vegetation that had grown up against the wall, the operation created a layer of mulch. With his botany degree, Brooking saw an opportunity. “The first summer I went and sprayed the trees. Then I went back and sprayed the weeds. I kept that area vegetation-free while the wood deteriorated.” Last March, while most of us were sitting at home having Zoom meetings, Brooking was under the bluffs planting his 1.7 million seeds.

Four months later the fruits of his labors speak (or sing) for themselves: an explosion of summer color spreading comfort and joy to all who need it. All Brooking wants is for people to enjoy them. “It’s free flowers … go get some!” he exclaimed, noting that with so much seed in the ground the blooms should keep coming through the first freeze. If you go, take some scissors to cut the stems properly, so the plants can keep flowering. Pull a few weeds while you’re at it and you’ll be helping him out. “I just enjoy beautifying the city,” Brooking exclaimed. “The larger the area the happier I am.” —James Fox-Smith