care of Lupines and poppies for next year?

I have a beautiful area filled with lupines and poppies, which also contains fountain grass, lavender, flax, etc. My question
is when the wildflowers are finished blooming should i let them day back? cut them back? let them reseed,which I want)
and maintain a look of neatness in the bed.
Thank you!
Dee

I always leave a few poppy heads for re-seedling. Some of the annual poppies look pretty ratty after they bloom so I pull anything that's a real eye sore right out.

Same with lupines. I cut some of the spent blooms off but leave a few for seed. Lupines look nasty after blooming too. If you cut them back they'll put out new & cleaner growth.

You can tidy them up but leave a few seed heads.

Thank you poppysue for the information!
Good gardening!
Dee

Last summer I had some lupines rebloom after I had cut back their early bloom. The second blooms I let some of the pods remain for reseeding. You don't need to leave the entire stalk for a few seeds for your garden.

Do the pods just re-seed by falling off? My friend told me to scarify the seeds after removing them from the pods. Seems easier to not have to do that!

My family reseeds the poppies for me. Everyone has their favorite and since they come in these convenient little shakers.... Everyone shakes out the kind they like and I pull poppies from every nook and cranny come February. I made sure to tag my favorite little orange sherbet colored one this year because I have a plan for it for next year.

I leave the flax and bachelor buttons because the birds like them and will do the reseeding for me.

Lupines won't need to be scarified if you leave them to re-seed. They'll germinate fine on their own.

When starting them indoors they germinate better if they're scarified.

Lupine seeds don't just fall out of their pods... they fly out when the pods pop open. I have found babies 8 feet away from the mother plant before. I have never scarified the seeds. Just let them go to seed on their own and you will see babies. Sometimes you see babies in the fall from seeds that fell in the spring :)

You are not kidding, B_B! I went out of town for a week and left green pods sitting on a paper plate on my desk. When I returned, there were seeds EVERYWHERE!! I am going to sprout lupines from my laptop!!

lol Daisy! I have some on a paperplate right now - guess I'd better cover them with a paper towel or something, huh?

Watch out, Karrie!!!

I switched to using paper bags after that little explosion!

ah! GREAT idea!