All About Growing Poppies
SAVING SEEDS, PLANTING POPPIES AND TIPS FOR BEGINNERS
For years I’ve tried to plant poppies with no success. My city container and community gardens would be complete failures when it came to planting poppies, and only recently did I finally get the hang of it at the farm. Here are some tips that worked for me.
1) Have fun planting poppies and experimenting with the seeds
Like all things gardening, once I let go of the anxiety that I was doing it wrong, suddenly planting poppies worked! First, choose some fun seed varieties. I like to do this in the winter when I’m yearning for spring. Baker Creek Rare Seeds is a family run operation with heirloom varieties so they’re one of my favorite to support. Below you’ll find the Papaver “Hens and Chickens Poppy Seed” variety that was beautifully delicate.
As part of the experimentation, there are 2 key tools that help me when planting poppies (and all plants honestly)
The Naturalists Notebook tracks year after year for five years total, what you’ve planted and where, and how it performs. I use this for poppies especially because remembering what works is key to getting better each time.
Bamboo plant tags are environmentally friendly, don’t fade quickly, and are small so that you can identify where you planted your seeds
2. Plant in early Spring (March) and late fall (October)
Most of the people reading this are in the Northeast zone 6-7. The biggest mistake I see people doing here is planting too late. Poppies are seeds that benefit from the cold, they require a process called “stratification” and time for wet weather to break down their seed coat. This is why you can even sprinkle them in the snow, and why I think you can’t lose if you think “rainy season is when I should plant poppies”.
Like all things gardening, once I stop my anxiety about it, I get great results.
American Legion poppies at Stone House Farm
Celebrate them when they arrive
Usually they are super short lived and take about 60 days to arrive. So I like to have a picnic dedicated just to them, or take my time in the garden when I am planting near them so I can witness their delicate beauty. A true delight is a group of poppies you planted, swaying in the wind.
Save the seeds easily
Now one of the most fun parts of poppies comes after they are spent.
One of my favorite garden designers, Piet Oudolf, says that dead flowers are an important element of an all-year-round garden. There is beauty in all forms of the horticultural cycle, so embrace it! Wait a week after the petals drop, and you’ll have gorgeous seed pod heads. Use them in dried arrangements or as single varieties in a vase. Let them dry, and for next season you have yourself almost an entire packet in one pod!
