Portage Poppy

[Sherry_AK]

I mentioned these in another thread re starting poppies from seed. Although these particular ones are in the regular garden, they make really great rock garden plants. They are perennial and are a lovely peach color. They are also one of the first to bloom in my garden.

Sherry

[remy]

You know I think they are very pretty!
Remy

[Sherry_AK]

Thanks Remy! And this picture doesn't do them justice.

[robin303]

I was going to plant some Poppies but on the back of the pkg it said 180 to 300 days to flower. I have a cat. She digs everywhere by golly. Well so far no Poppies.

[Sherry_AK]

180 - 300 days is a long time. Usually annual poppies will flower much sooner than that. But I guess it really doesn't matter if your cat is digging them up anyway! At least she helps by "cultivating" your soil!

[OmahaJB]

Nice poppies...If I were going to grow any type of flowers, I think it'd be poppies. I particularly like the larger ones.

When I first started searching the web regarding gardening topics, I did searches on EBAY before eventually finding GardenWeb & Tomatoville. I purchased a bunch of poppy seeds that I could never get to germinate. And I had followed the directions to a T. Something about the way the seeds looked and were packaged made me suspicious that maybe they were purchased somewhere in bulk and meant for cooking needs, not for growing. Even though I didn't know what they were supposed to look like , I was still suspicious.

Ladybird poppy has a nice bold look to it, but only gets 12-18" tall, according to the SSE seed catalog. I'd like to find a poppy that gets very tall with HUGE flowers. I'll have to do some investigating....

Jeff

[gssgarden]

Here's one of mine. It was given to me by a customer. It's the largest one I've seen and with the ruffled edges and black center, it becomes really showy. Pumped out alot of flowers too.

Greg

NEW 075.jpg

[OmahaJB]

I guess the flowers on those do get pretty big. Thanks for that attachment, Greg. There's a small area in my garden where I wont plant anything edible (step-father's deceased dog buried there) , so I wanted to either plant a hosta (I like the Patriot) or some type of flower in that spot. The garden's actually over at my mother's house so I wanted to plant something like that for her. I thought the larger poppies might be eye-catching. And actually now that I've seen your attachment I think that would be a good one.

Problem is it's probably too late to plant some. I'm guessing, of course.

Whenever they show the opium poppies in Afghanistan on the nightly news I wonder what those flowers would look like open. The stems are tall, and the pods are very large. That must be a sight when they have thousands of poppy flowers open at once. Although I don't know if they would since they slice those things to get the opium out. Perhaps the flowers don't even bloom.

As you can see I know next to nothing about poppies!
But some are very attractive.

Jeff

[Sherry_AK]

I grow annual poppies as well as the perennials. First pic below is an Oriental Poppy and the others are annuals (which reseed way too freely and I have too many every year, but I love them!).

[OmahaJB]

Sherry,

I almost didn't click on the Oriental Poppy thinking I could see it well enough without doing so. Wrong! When I did click it and saw the enlarged pic I was blown away with the intricate detail of the center of the flower. Gorgeous...

And great close-up pic. You did a great job taking it. I can even see either the morning dew or remnants of a spring shower.

Jeff

[Sherry_AK]

Thanks, Jeff. That picture was from a couple years ago, so I don't recall the circumstance of the drops.

I hope you can get some poppies going ... they're well worth the effort.

Sherry

[gssgarden]

Sherry, do you collect seeds from the ones in the second and third pic? If you do and you want to trade, let me know. That goes for the rest of you. If you guys want some seed, just PM me.

Jeff, I'm sure it's too late for you. I plant mine in Nov. I just keep them moist until they sprout which isn't long, then they pretty much stay the same all winter. About an inch or two. Then the explode in the spring. Once they dry up I collect seed. Sooooo easy.

Greg

[Sherry_AK]

Greg -- I do collect seed from the annual poppies. It's all mixed together in one big jar, and not separated by color. I'd be very glad to send you some if you'll PM me your address. I have a ton of them!

Sherry

[OmahaJB]

Good info, Greg. I never would have guessed poppies are started from seed in the fall. So this year when I'm planting garlic, I'll spread some poppy seed at the same time. The garlic sure is doing well, so with luck the poppies will as well next growing season.

Jeff