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No matter how many different methods I try, I can't grow native POPPIES. Help...

PeterJarvisPeterJarvis Posts: 123
in Wildlife gardening
I'd be grateful for any new ideas about how to take a packet of poppy seeds and get plants to grow in my garden from them. I've tried all the obvious and tested methods and have found none that work. Help please!
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Posts

  • debs64debs64 Posts: 5,184
    I tried nurturing them carefully but to no avail so now I just sprinkle seeds on patches of bare earth and it works. They seem to thrive on neglect 
  • UffUff Posts: 3,199
    Absolutely right debs64. They are wild flowers and don't do well on rich soil. 
    SW SCOTLAND but born in Derbyshire
  • debs64debs64 Posts: 5,184
    @Uff I found they also hate root disturbance too so I just sprinkle seeds in sunny spots early in the season and they do better. 
  • debs64debs64 Posts: 5,184

  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,445
    Sow them in Autumn


    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited May 2022
    .
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    The damp-loving Welsh poppies are a very different kettle of fish to the red native poppy of the cornfields.  
    I agree with @nutcutlet ... wild field poppies of the East Anglian cornfields shed their seeds onto the  soil surface in the late summer and are baked by the sun ... then the soil is cultivated and rained on in the spring and the seeds germinate ... I'd try to mimic that.  

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    Just to be contrary, I sow annual poppies in modules, thin out to 1 per cell and plant out when big enough. I do this for special colours, that I want in particular places, the rest just do their own thing. I have always ignored the root disturbance thing and don't have a problem.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • bertrand-mabelbertrand-mabel Posts: 2,697
    @PeterJarvis the corn/field poppy is my favourite flower. I sow the seeds directly onto bare earth having collected the seeds from last years plants. I always have good germination rates. Water them when sown and if no rain for a while then water again. Today it has rained all day so hope the seeds are grateful (as other plants in the garden!)
    Sometimes I find poppies growing in the polytunnel in the soil and wait until they are big enough to handle and then transplant them out in to areas that haven't got any growing.
    Fabulous vibrant red.
  • JellyfireJellyfire Posts: 1,139
    I was always told to sow them on snow, presumably are one of the seeds that need a good cold spell to get them going. Try putting a packet in the freezer for a week and then sowing them. They also like poor, freshly disturbed soil apparently. I usually just scatter them about in spring, some germinate but not loads. They quite often pop up in areas that have been freshly dug for the first time in a while though 
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