Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Photos of plants from the Fall Group Seed Swap!, 1 by beckygardener

beckygardener wrote:
I have been on the Poppy Forum lately asking questions about my poppies since I have never, ever grown them before or even seen them growing in Florida. And I have been getting some interesting answers. And I may have asked questions that are throwing some of the members over there for a loop! LOL! You know me, I always ask the odd questions that start everyone thinking! LOL! Here is the thread I have been posting my questions on:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/819999/

Well, I always thought that poppies needed cold stratification. Well ... for these seeds, that answer is definitely NO! We never even had a freeze this year in my area. Coldest it got was around 40 for a couple of hours in the late evening/early morning and then the temps shot back up to 60s, 70, and even 80s! (Global Warming has arrived in Florida!) We maybe had such temps off and on the entire winter months perhaps 10 times and not in a row. So cold stratification is NOT what germinates them. One of the members said that the seeds are so tiny that in the winter when everything dies back, the seeds are able to germinate because they are not competing for sunlight by surrounding plants. Makes perfect sense to me, because I had almost completely cleaned out and turned the soil in that 3-tiered bed.

Sheila - It may very well have been seeds from you or Chris. It was a 3" X 5" ziploc just completely FULL of tiny black seeds. It was labeled "Pink Poppy". And yes! They are Opium/Lettuce Leaf poppies. And no you can NOT easily make drugs from these and yes! they are the same seeds used on bread!

I kid you not ... I must have tossed about 5,000 - 10,000 seeds in that bed! No lie. This was a larger baggie full of seeds! Out of all those seeds, I got maybe 100 -150 plants that germinated. I also think they were fresh seeds which I was told germinate much better! Since no one requested them in the swap, I hated to see them go to waste. I also think that smaller seeds don't stay viable as long, so I thought ... what the heck ... hate to waste them, let's see what happens! LOL! Boy oh boy! Am I ever glad I did! I absolutely LOVE these beautiful poppies. If I get enough seeds from these, I would be more than glad to share some with you Florida ladies!

I also get those random packets of seeds as a freebie with magazine subscriptions. Same variety only the smaller red blooms. I have been sowing those freebies for years with NO luck! Well, guess what ... in the attached photo I got a single red poppy to germinate this year. It is dwarfed by the larger pink poppies! :-) Too funny, huh?

Sheila - If it was you who I got the seeds from ... THANK YOU! I just love them!!! And if it was Chris - thank you as well!

This message was edited Apr 2, 2008 10:03 AM