About Poppies

Papaver orientale is a perennial rather than an annual - my book does not say whether they come true from the seed the plant produces or not. You can buy the plants and then split them or take root cuttings as they get larger - they spread by root runners. Perhaps you should investigate the seed suppliers to see if you can buy the seed.

I'm pretty sure they grow from seed, I thin I saw some in T&M so if you google Thompson and Morgan you should see some seeds. Hope I've not sent you on a wild seed chase:-)

Yes they can be grown from seed but if you have several different colours in your garden there is no knowing what you will end up with :-) Mecanopsis always grow true from seed.

I've grown some from seed and the majority turn out orangey/red. You can get seed of 'Royal Wedding' which is white but whether it comes true or not I've no idea.

It should come true from bought seed, it's whether the plants you grow yourself come true from the seed produced.

If the plant has been 'open pollinated', ie by insects in the garden, then the flowers can be any colour. The seeds for sale should have been from plants hand pollinated and then kept isolated from roaming insects. By this means the grower knows what the seed will produce.

Which must be why my books says to take root cuttings then - annoying that it doesn't say they don't come true from seed.

I thought oriental poopy seeds were sterile so have never saved them?

Apparently not, Drc - its just you don't know what you'll get if you grow them.

If you do try growing them from seed, for heavens sake do not grow them in lines in a nursery bed to wait until you can see what colour flowers you get. I did that, the majority were orange as usual. BUT there were some really good coloured ones which I moved to where I wanted them. I was still trying to get rid of the ones in the nursery bed 5 years later!

Gosh,what a lot of help . Thankyou very much. shall buy some new seed ,and get started right away.
I can assume that it would be the right time to sow a few seeds now,as the natural poppy seed heads are already dropping their seed.

if we"re talking papaver & its a nursery grown plant then yes the seeds are likely to be sterile but only for the first year, jst like bulbaholic said the natural way is the best, it also helps if you have more than one plant...... ive been growing for 5 yrs & ive got 1 plant in its 5th yr with pink/purple flowers, i must of had at least 25 heads this year..... ive also got a papaver red in its 2nd year wth at least 10 heads in june AND a second flowering in the last 2 weeks. ....this year i bought what i was led to believe a white poppy from my local nursery & what developed was a deeper red flower~ ive also had a different variety of poppy growing this year wth smaller heads than papaver,growing as much as 5ft tall,also a small purple peoni poppy ive grown from seed i bought at chelsea this year. see my pics ;)

Drc726, I don't like the sound of your oriental poopy seeds, thank goodness they're sterile! :-))

Actually I'm dismayed thinking my lovely white annual oriental poppies were sterile I have not kept their seed.

Drc726, I'm sorry, Its just my childish sense of humour as you actually typed poopy instead of poppy. I understand your dismay, but might it be possible that they have self seeded? mine used to (old garden) so all may not be lost and maybe someone on site has some seeds you could have :-)

I thought it was funny too - apprently when I text my daughter its comes out xxx nun instead of mum. I have already been sent some seeds and am being sent some welsh poppy seeds I do so love poppies.

Drc726 A word of warning with the Mecanopsis cambrica (Welsh poppy) it is invasive... we try to remove as many of the seed heads as we can and it still has to be weeded out from areas we don't want it in. Very pretty though.

You're right about predictive text wanting to put 'nun' instead of 'mum' - amazing to me that the person who designed that piece of software thought you'd be more likely to need the word 'nun' more often than mum, as its the first option it offers. I can count the occasions when I might have wanted to use that word on the fingers on one hand, most of them to do with beefing about predictive text....

Moon grower, I never find a flower invasive if it comes out easily, lots of my favourite flowers are "invasive" like the musk mallow, alchemilla mollis (ladies mantle) euphorbia dixter, geranium psilostemon and course welsh poppy and the common opium poppy...just means more beautiful plants for free:-) Now celandine, that's what I call invasive and it's the bane of my life and which, with advice from seaburngirl, I'm going to get rid of next spring :-))

Mec. cambrica doesn't come out easily, at least in my exerience - it has a long tap root and you only need to leave a little bit and it is back... Erinus alpina on the other hand seeds like mad but can be pulled up with no effort. Free plants are fine if you want them and we do let plants seed (mostly to collect the seed for the SRGC) but there are occasions when I put my foot down.

Actually there is a poppy which is far more invasive than Meconopsis cambrica. That is a single orange poppy which we used to know as P. atlanticum but which has recently been changed to something else. It also comes as a double one and that is equally invasive. How I wish that one we have which actually prefers woodland conditions would seed like that. In 14 years we have had seed from it once. If I could remember its name I would tell you.

Gosh,what a lot of response on this one.Thanks a million

You mean you have only just looked Justvera?

Hello moongrower,no .of course not but today I saw that "say thanks" bit and realized that perhaps we are expected to add a thankyou to the replies so I added a late one. I had of course read and appreciated them before .
I then looked back at other stuff I have asked about but then decided it was a bit too late to add thankyou's.I do not write very often but have gained most of my knowledge on gardening by reading every one else's questions and the answers.
which I read almost every day !
I think it is a great program,I love it.

my advice is......if you grow a nursery plant the first year, when your seed heads have formed & dried suffiently dont dispose them, sprinkle them around the base of your existing plant, personally i dont believe every seed will be sterile........you could do this every year & it can help your plant grow bigger faster to form one big plant with more blooms, by your 3rd year most of your seeds are likely to germinate then its survival of the fittest plants, also mixing seed of 2 different colours can produce another colour, its all part of the excitement when you see those first flower heads appearing.....REMEMBER SEEDS ARE BLACK WHEN THE HEADS HAVE DRIED PROPERLY ;))