Poppies

I just read an article that poppy seeds should be sown outdoors with the last snow cover. Anyone heard of that? I'm hoping this is the last snow cover. I have lots of poppy seeds.

It's the only way I sow them. Now is fine and I've had great germination on snows as late early April.

As I'm cleaning up the dead 'stuff' from last year I always just pop the seed heads and scatter.....am never without poppies come Spring. :-)

Um, I guess that means I won't have any poppies this year...I deadheaded mine at the end of the season. Pays to ask questions...duh me. Thanks.

ooops :-)

Well then, there's nothing to stop me from buying some poppy seeds and winter sowing them. There's still so much snow here - its been snowing for the past 3 days. Where I planted them last year, beside my driveway, is under about 6' of snow right now so I couldn't spread the seeds there very easily...lol. Thanks for the info. Happy growing!

I guess when the snow melts the seed would settle on the ground beneath it, ceedbub :) Wouldn't that be a fun gardening project? :) "Planting" seeds in 6' of snow!

Oh do get a picture of that ceedub. LOL

LOL - with my luck, they'd migrate I'd end up with poppies in the middle of my lawn! Hmmm....lol.

ceedub, if you're talking about wintersowing in containers & then transplanting, I recently learned from some DGers that poppies hate to be transplanted, so direct sowing might be best even if you have to wait for some of that snow to melt!

Thanks critterologist, I've been getting the same advice elsewhere. That's likely what happened to the orientals I planted last year-I got one bloom from 3 plants, and I deadheaded it.... So, I guess I can be patient - hmm, maybe I'll start digging in the snow....lol. Thanks again all for your help.

Hi, Ceedub. Which poppies are you interested in growing? If it is somniferum, I can send you some to broadcast outdoors. On another thread, someone mentioned sowing seeds on the snow and letting them melt down through and germinate in the spring. Of course, I don't know if the birds would think you've given them a treat!

Because our season is so short, I start all my poppies indoors. I sow the seed in trays, then transplant them to cell packs. Most all transplant well for me, though I always lose a few. The stems are quite delicate, so I make sure I loosen the soil and lift them carefully out without touching the stems. I make a hole in the cell, then lower them in carefully. I start my poppies 11 weeks before the danger of frost is past, and they still don't bloom until July.

Hi Weezi, thank you so much! But, I actually have some Peony Poppies on the way, which I understand are somniferum. I will likely broadcast them on the snow once its melted a few more feet, but I'll bury them a bit in the snow, as we live about 500 ft from Lake Ontario - a bird's paradise - thanks for the warning!. It's above 0C today for the first time in a few weeks, so I'll likely be able to do it before the end of March, unless I get impatient and start moving the snow pile. (FYI, they'll be in the same flower bed that my forget-me-nots are in-should be really pretty.) Thanks again.

Christine.

Yes, it certainly should be pretty! Poppies bloom later than the forget-me-nots here, but my season is very short.

A growing season that short sure would be a challenge. I admire you for all the work it entails. Of course I'm very sure you reap your own rewards from all that work, so it all balances out.

Yes, we get lots of daylight when we do have nice weather, and the mildness of our climate makes it much easier to grow plants later into the summer. We just don't get very hot, so it's more springlike than summerlike.

I'm not fond of the hot weather myself, so that sounds just marvelous to me.

Thank you all...I will probably sow them directly this week...one more snow coming....it has to end soon. Do you think it's too early now only in march....should I wait for april? I'm in 5a.

Considering that most seeds would self-sow themselves in the fall, so anytime before or in the spring is probably fine.

I'm so tempted to direct sow now, but the place I want to grow my poppies (Papaver rhoes) has not yet been prepared as a site (who knew I'd want to start a bed there? Not me, until the middle of winter!), and I feel like I should go ahead and do all the double digging and soil amendment bit -- right? If I wait until the snow is gone (hah! it's *so* high!) and the ground has thawed enough to work, might I still get blooms the first year? Thanks, Mary.

I grow poppies..but I've never winter sown them...hmmmmm. Learn something new everyday. I just put them in the starting trays and then transplant them when the weather warms.

The snow has finally almost all melted from my garden bed. I have a question. I looked at the garden bed yesterday, and I saw frozen (oriental) poppy foliage, which is still green. Is this wierd, or normal? Will it just rot once it warms up? Or sould I just yank it? Thanks.

It's going to rain on Friday, and I'm going to spread peony poppy seeds there this weekend. I'm quite sure there'll be a bit more snow to help them along...

Christine.

Kim, I grow mine the same way. Our season is so short, I like to get a head start. I sow them in trays indoors about 11 weeks before last danger of frost. Christine, I'd wait to see how the foliage looks once things thaw. Could it be that you had a warm spell and your poppy began to grow, then winter returned and froze it? Sometimes perennials survive a bit of spring snow just fine. I'd wait and see.

Thanks Weezi, I'll do that.

Well, I'm sure glad I asked Weezi, I looked this morning, and the two Oriental Poppies are growing like crazy! They're the only thing that's green in any of my garden beds. So, it seems they are a true perennial, and not dependent on seeds, and don't mind being frozen solid a few times after they start growing. Is this unusual? Oh, and I scattered a whole bunch of peony poppy seeds all along the front of the bed they're in.... Oh well, there's only the two of them....

Oriental poppies are perennial in my zone 3 climate, for sure. Mine are up against the foundation of my house, so they benefit from the heat in the basement, but I've also grown them out in the yard and they came back. My oldest oriental poppy is one of the first plants to come up in the spring. It seems to be able to take some pretty nasty turns in the weather.

Aren't they just wonderful! I'm so happy to finally have something green in my garden. This has been an especially nasty winter here with more snow and colder temperatures than usual. That's why its nice to finally see at least some evidence that's its ending. I took some pictures this a.m., but then the camera died. So once its charged back up I'll take some more (when the sun's out!) and post them. Thanks Weezi.

I'd love to see your pics, ceedub. We had a pretty good winter with some cold temps, but a fair snow cover. However, it became very mild and springlike in early March, so I had to uncover my South bed so that the spring bulb pants would not be crushed under the straw. I've been covering it with floating row cover on the cold nights every since. I don't usually uncover it until late April. The crocus are in full bloom now, as well as a small Primula polyantha who is popping its first bloom, and most everything else is sending up shoots.

Wow, you're that much further north, and that many zones north of me, and you have lots of stuff coming up already .... isn't this some kind of reverse zone envy? 8-)

Well, no bragging here. It's an unusual spring, I think. I have noticed in the last few years that our spring come early many years.

And ours is late, despite Wiarton Willie (Ontario's groundhog spring prognosticator), who told us that it would be an early spring this year....lol. I was out in the pouring rain just a few minutes ago cleaning up some dead corsican hellebore foliage, and searching in vain for signs of new growth. I did, however, see the very start of some buds on my dwarf korean lilac - but that was it... Well, that is the north side of my house too, and notoriously late with everything. Maybe this rain will spur the poeny poppies into doing something - they're on the south side of the house, where the oriental poppies are growing nicely. Here's a picture I took a few minutes ago, the rain's turning to snow now...sigh. Happy Saturday!

Your oriental looks good, ceedub! The beds around my house are the only ones showing any activity yet. The others are still under a bit of snow. Tulips are coming up on the west side, so I'll have to uncover it soon, as well. It's just too early for this, but the tulips don't know that. It's been dipping into the 20'sF at night.

That is pretty cold for them at night. We've been hovering around the freezing mark day and night for the past few days. Mostly it rained all weekend, with some snow here and there that fortunately promptly melted. So, I guess while spring really is here, its just as nasty as the winter's been. 8-) Warmer temps are promised for later this week - I'm sure that mixed with this weekend's rain, we'll see lots more green stuff by next weekend.

Weather has been good for the poppies that seeded naturally from last year, and the perennial P atlanticum shown here about to burst.

That's just lovely balvenie! I can't wait for mine to bloom...sigh...lol.

Beautiful, blavenie! Ceedub, I guess we must just be patient, but I have so many flats of plants that are waiting for warmer nights.

So, I winter sowed seeds for oriental poppies about 3 weeks ago. I dropped the seeds into the snow. Should they grow soon? Everything else is starting to come up. I don't want to goive up on them too early.

The seeds will start to germinate when the soil is warm enough for them, I should think. I'd give them a bit more time.

Patientce pays....this lovely gem opened on Thursday morning.

A side shot. The seed pod is so huge on it, but I can't get it into a picture right now.

I almost forgot - this is an oriental poppy, its second season. The first season it produced one flower. There's 8 more buds on this plant.

I'm finally happy!!