Saving Oriental Poppy Seeds

Bought a lovely Oriental Poppy plant this spring. I removed 2 spent blossoms to encourage more....It has 2 current blooms and a couple more buds

Question: Can I save Oriental Poppy seeds and if so, should I have left the "done" blossoms on the plant to form seed heads? Has anyone saved Oriental Poppy seeds and if so, would you be willing to give me a "how to"?

THANK YOU
val

Simplest thing in the world... but to allow any plant to form seeds, you have to leave the flowers on, and not deadhead (i.e. remove them). The, so long as it gets pollinated, seeds will form in what looks like a typical poppy seed head (see attached photo, in the white circle).
You have to let these seed heads dry - they will turn a tan colour. As they dry, small openings will develop around the top of the green part, just beneath the central disc with the black radiating lines on it.
The seeds can easily be shaken out of the dried seed head into a bowl, and then stored in a container in a cool, dry place. If they are still slightly green, or dampish, let them dry in the open first before storing. Or you could just scatter them immediately where you want more to come up.

Right after I took the spent flowers off, I thought of that! Oh, well, I have more flowers coming and will leave them on to form seeds.

Alta, do you find they are difficult to sow/germinate?
Your poppies are gorgeous!

I started these from seed about 15 or more years ago, and honestly don't remember much about it. But reading about it, they are easy, warm germinators (that is, they don't need to be stratified) - in other words, they're like growing most annuals - no fuss. They need light to germinate, so therefore just sprinkle the seeds on top of the soil, if you are planning to grow them in pots... or just make it easy on yourself and sprinkle the seeds where you want them to grow.

In case you're not aware of it, oriental poppies go dormant after blooming (the foliage turns yellow and dries up), and then they may or may not send up more foliage in late summer/fall. For this reason, if you have any large, mature plants, it's a good idea to place some plant rings around them, to hold the foliage more upright, so as to give the plants around them more space to develop. That way, when the poppy goes dormant, it will leave a smaller gap, that can be filled by the surrounding plants more easily.

You may want to place a paper bag around the capsule when it starts to dry, as the seeds are shaken out by the wind.
Oriental poppies indeed work well from seed, and as with most of those early summer perennials, don't wait to seed them - nature does some "just in time" seed production here, allowing for a first bloom next early summer.

Thanks, Alta -- and pmm!

I read recently that the oriental poppies go dormant in the hot weather/summer and often people think they "died" so water and water, and tend to kill them off. I will put something on the seed pods to save them. I'd like to try and play with the seeds and see if I can get them to germinate next year.

I have always thought how gorgeous these poppies were, but thought they were hard to care for.

No, as long as they're not in standing water, they're pretty well unkillable... They're hardy through zone 2 at least and the roots go half-way to China, so they're actually very hard to get rid of, from place where you don't want them.

valal: I had lots of trouble getting Oriental Seeds from germination to flower. I finally made the transition when I planted them in a raised bed that pretty much had ideal conditions with good drainage, protection from wind and erosion etc. Of course, you can't have mulch around the plants or the seeds won't make contact with the soil. They must have good drainage.
I think the flowers are beautiful--really large blooms.

I'm growing a different poppy this year: Papaver bracteatum

http://www.swallowtailgardenseeds.com/perennials/poppy_assortedper.html#gsc.tab=0

Thanks Birder,

Those are GORGEOUS. I would love to see your blooms! I was looking at swallowtail's oriental poppy seeds as they have a wonderful selection, and some terrific colors! (I love their site/seeds)!

An alternative to a paper bag seed-catcher is an "organza bag", made of material like a very fine mesh. Hopefully that mesh is fine enough to hold tiny poppy seeds!

Craft stores and Wal-Mart will have them in a "bridal supply" isle. They have handy pull-ties that let you tie them around a bloom. The fine mesh lets air, water and sun in and out freely.

The best prices, and wide variety of sizes and colors are here.
You can even buy small numbers of them cheap:
http://www.giftsintl.com/organzabag.php

I don't recall now why I thought the first place was better than this place:
http://www.yourorganzabag.com/organzabag.htm

You can also use organza bags to keep pollinating insects away from a few blooms so you can pollinate by hand and get completely pure seeds to save and trade.

I was not around til today (all week) and so I found 3 brown/dried seed heads and took them, put them in a ziploc bag and shook...got some seeds! Might have gotten more the bag way (I think my craft store sells the organza bags by the piece!) That's a great idea!
Thank you for the suggestions!

Enjoy!

I hope this means you'll have plenty of poppy seeds for future seed trading!

Well, what I have won't fill a 1/4 tsp so still hoping to get some more....still have 2 blooms :-)

I've noticed that people trading poppy seeds tend to either give a micro-pinch (which might still be 30-90 seeds, I can't count things that small) ...

... or vast quantities, suggesting they found a way to catch lots of seeds.

Plastic plates or cardboard boxes under the whole planting?