My opium poppies always start to look tatty around the leaves as the flowers open. I also pull most of them once the flowers are over, leaving a few for seed pods, some well away from the boundary so the pods are less susceptible to being nicked, and some by the gate that will almost certainly have the pods taken before they're ripe so no use for seeds. If only people would knock and ask when they're all in flower I would save them some pods.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
Apparently the seeds can lie dormant for decades waiting for the right conditions (sunlight!). I had a row of leylandii cleared when we moved in here, and the next year a load of those opium poppies popped up where there was suddenly sunlight hitting the ground there for the first time in god knows how long!
I've learned some useful stuff about poppies here, thanks everybody!
And the above comment explains why we now have a row of beautiful but garish Carnation poppies where there was nothing last year.
So in a few months we'll have fun collecting the seeds and then spreading them where we want them, in the hope that we'll see them next year.
That's the trouble with seeds that lie dormant - you can so easily forget about them and then 'over-sow' the space with something else. So if they do choose to lie dormant then we'll probably end up with an amazing display of mixed flowers.
Inherited an amazing garden in Taunton, Somerset, stuffed with wonderful plants, shrubs, trees and creatures
The problem with poppies and other self-seeders is that if you try to put the seed where you want them, they might not want to grow there. Worth a try but chuck plenty around (there are thousands in every seed head) and let some do their own thing as well. The best plants always seem to be the ones that go their own way even if it's not a text-book spot for them.
Examples:
1. Onopordum are supposed to like full sun but here they are in a spot that just gets a bit in the early morning.
2. Foxgloves are supposed to like dappled shade woodland-edge conditions, but this lovely white one is in the edge of a bed right out in the open in full blazing sun.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
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