The threshold of the holiday season may probably not be the best time to drum up interest in a new forum, but what's a cottage garden without poppies? With approximately 25 genera and 200 species, the possible permutations for cottage gardening are huge. Hopefully y'all will check out the poppy thread and give an assist to the new forum at:
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/670451/
Thank you all for getting this forum on cottage gardening going. When I catch up on a few things, I can't think of a better place to "dream and scheme" away the winter than here.
poppy forum???
poppies did you say poppies
I have been trying to get these out of the garden for yrs
Maybe you haven't tried enough different varieties LOL
I feel like such a loser! I have been trying to get them growing at my place -- I have yet to have even ONE poppy to germinate, much less bloom, and it's been off and on for over 20 years! THIS year is my year, though. I have about 1/2 cup of seed and they *will* grow and prosper!
Blue, I am off to the poppy forum - -thanks for the link.
Suzy
oh yes i have!!! but they reseed heavily!!!
I would love to have them and bachelor buttons in a field all their own-just not all over the garden!
I left a few grow every yr!
I'd love to see more discussion on poppies -- right here on the new cottage gardening forum! I'm not a big fan of the wild proliferation of forums that's been going on lately... I miss a lot if I have to click on 50 different forums, and in particular I miss out on learning about something I don't already grow... I probably wouldn't drop in on a "poppies only" forum, but with photos and information right here I'd probably get hooked on them quickly enough.
Dave has said (paraphrasing here) that new forums are appropriate when the topic can't be reasonably included in an existing forum, or when discussion of one topic is overwhelming other topics in that forum. I hate to disagree with blue or to dampen anyone's enthusiasm, but I think it's more than a question of whether a particular type of plant is special or varied enough to "deserve" its own forum.
One the other hand, I think the new cottage gardening forum is already generating a lot of interest and discussion that will continue through the winter months as we think up new combinations etc for our gardens!
Illoquin, I feel your frustration about getting poppies to germinate, or did till I germinated them via winter sowing. Seriously, poppies are the easiest thing to get to germinate if you winter sow them. Try it, you'll be amazed at how many poppy types you can have!
Diann
Diann,
Aren't baby poppies very, very small? Like so small a bird would trample them? I just can't see planting them out like that. I'd need a tweezer and magnifying glass! Or maybe they aren't as thin as a thread and the pictures I saw weren't ready to be moved for a couple months?
HOWEVER, since my #1 goal for 2007 is to have poppies, yes, I will be wintersowing (and transplanting the HOS method) but I'm also fall sowing, and spring sowing and snow sowing. I will have poppies! LOL!
Suzy
Sure, baby poppies are very small, as is all things when they first germinate, but they will grow and get bigger. I had probably 15 or 20 pots of poppies that I started winter before last, then planted and now I'm ripping them out in spots cause they grew so much that they overtook everything else. I didn't try to transplant my wintersown poppies from their original container to a larger container, I just popped the plug out, or tore a chunk off the tray and planted away...
Last spring I direct sowed some peony poppies and they all did really well and took off like a shot, I expect to be ripping those out of place I don't want poppies this year. :)
Diann
I can see Critter's point - will be happy to see more discussion on poppies wherever it "pops" up. I just posted a free, online 19th century journal by Celia Thaxter plus free, online source of images from the American impressionist who illustrated that journal when it was published over on the other thread. I hope noone minds, but I'm going to bring 'em over here, too.
Iloquin, the times when my poppy sowings have not done well are when I didn't protect them. For a while, I had cylinders I made out of chicken wire I could poke here and there (things are always planted over or under or between something around here). They worked fine. Where there's more space, I put down tunnels of bird netting over freshly sown seed. For young transplants, I use small armies of tripods - just crossed sticks of 6" or more.
I seem to recall reading in the Wintersow Forum that someone who wintersowed poppies just pulled clumps apart from each other and stuck 'em in the ground without pulling them apart any further - so never mind the tweezers and magnifying glass. She posted pictures later in summer and they were gorgeous. I definitely want to try wintersowing poppies - maybe 8 weeks before last spring frost - because it seems like one more hedge against all the fancy paw-work going on out there.
It goes from nippy to sweltering very quickly here, so since poppies seem happiest in cool weather, they may appreciate wintersowing all the more.
Notmartha, how late do your poppies bloom where you are? Here, they're all crispy brown by mid July.
I certainly am going to appreciate the company as Mother Nature and I have our annual tussle over growing poppies in my garden next year. Thanks all.
Ticker, we crossed in cyberspace - ripping out peony poppies??? You and Notmartha sure know how to tease - LOL I know I shouldn't even think about growing those, but J L Hudson is selling black double ones...
I transplanted a bunch of wintersown poppies last spring via the "Hunk-o-seedlings" method, and I just don't think that method works for me. I'm planning to direct sow a bunch of poppies over the winter, maybe put some "special" ones in WS containers, but this time I will clump transplant them ot a nursery flat so they have bigger roots when I plant them out... That's just what works for me when I wintersow, but I know other folks have put out hunks of tiny poppy seedlings that did great. Fun to experiment!
Thanks, Critter - every little tidbit helps. If my memory is cooperating, Celia Thaxter planted hers in egg cartons on the mainland where she wintered. Every spring the boat taking her to her island for the summer would be festooned with greenery waving in the breezes. I hope I'll be excused this time for posting twice, but here's that post with her journal and its artwork by Childe Hassam:
One of the most famous cottage gardens of all time was memorialized in the diary of that garden's maker as well as in the watercolors, pastels and oils of her friend, the American impressionist, Childe Hassam, who illustrated it. Both her book and many of his works are free online in digital form.
I think this makes wonderful winter reading for the dreamers and schemers among us, and after you peruse a bit, ya gotta ask yourself what would her garden have been without poppies?
Celia Thaxter's book, An Island Garden is here:
[HYPERLINK@digital.library.upenn.edu]
the best scan I can find of her in her garden by Childe Hassam with those poppies in the foreground and the Atlantic ocean in the background is here:
[HYPERLINK@upload.wikimedia.org]
(labeled in my files: HassamChilde_CeliaThaxterinherGarde n_Wikipedia_1892
More of Childe Hassam's paintings are at: [HYPERLINK@www.artcyclopedia.com]
However, I had to go to [HYPERLINK@www.google.com] to find the scan I've put here
Blue, if you copied those links with the text from another post, that's why they didn't go through. They have to be pasted "fresh" into a post or Dmail. No biggie.
What a lovely painting!! Thanks for sharing the links!
I've never had much luck with direct sowing poppies either, so will be trying the winter sowing this winter too. I think the cottage garden forum is a good place to include them. Anyone have sugggestions for long blooming ones?
Susan
Some of my oriental poppies that I had wintersown in '05 grew so well their second year in the ground that some mature daylilies were in danger of being over powered and shaded out. I moved those poppies to another bed.
Diann
Poppies seem to do very well for me. I stopped to admire an eldery ladies garden last year and she gave me some poppy seed pods. I scattered them in a new bed I was making and they bloomed like crazy this summer.
early_bloomer
The poppys for next year are already up and growing.
Here are a couple of photos I took today........
early_bloomer
And the last one........
early_bloomer
EB, yours are in the ground for next season already?? That gives me hope that when mine arrive, they're going right into the new bed.
Early! They're so cute!
I didn't know I could have started those already! What is that brown stuff covering everything? Mulch? What kind? I was told that reseeders (like the poppies) wouldn't reseed if you used mulch is why I'm giving you the third degree. I need mulch, but I need poppies, too!
Suzy
Suzy......It's peat moss. I had a couple of old bales here that needed used up. It's a thin coating, not really thick enough to be a mulch. I added some ground up leaves to the bed too. I waited until the poppies had already come up before I added it to the beds.
I was worried last fall when all the little poppies sprouted. I thought they would never make it through the winter, but they did so I collected this years seed pods and sowed them around the first part of Oct. again this year.
early_bloomer
Early_Bloomer, do you know what kind of poppies those are? Shirley maybe?
susan
Hunh? Those are poppies? I thought it was Monarda.
I LOVE peatmoss, but leaves are free. I already put down a fairly thick coating of super-mulched leaves...I was going to brush it aside where I wanted poppies and I was going to wintersow some for insurance. It will be gone by May, but poppies need to be on their way before that.
On the poppies -- what do you plant for the space after they have come and gone?
Thanks,
Suzy
I thought I had posted this before, but I don't see it, so maybe it was during the puter probs when nothing was posting.
I am getting in several hundred to several thousand seeds in the next couple of days. If anyone would like some, let me know...
I'm getting the orange poppy, and Papaver Cummutatum Flanders..... those really deep bright orange which knock me over.
Jude
Hello:I just came across this forum.I direct sowed my poppy seeds and always seem to work for me.Around the middle of November.I just direct sowed my poppy seeds on top of worked soil.I dont cover the seeds.Here is a photo of my lavender peony poppy this past summer. I checked today my poppy bed and a few seeds already sprouted,due to this crazy weather.At least not all of them sprouted.
I have never tried peat moss for mulch as our climate is so dry it tends to suck moisture out of everything around it and it would blow away anyway. But that is great if it works for you!
I do use loads of green grass clippings for mulch and it works well. For starting a new poppy bed I often sow by scattering seed on the snow over the ground, which is prepared without mulching. The seeds sprout as the snow melts away. They need to stay moist while germinating and sending their first wee roots down. Drying out during that stage is the main reason people have trouble getting them to grow. Either that or burying them so they cannot sprout at all.
After the plants are big enough I mulch them. The trick with getting them to self seed in the mulch is to not have the mulch too heavy. Heavy enough to discourage weeds and hold moisture in the soil, but not too heavy for the poppies to sprout, a balancing act. Grass clippings decay quickly so a partially decayed mulch works well for sprouting the poppy seeds too. So I do not put fresh clippings on the garden in the fall.
Here is a photo of my Big Round in full bloom this past summer. I do go a bit berserk with Shirley poppies.
Hello:Mulchmania Is this normal for the poppy seeds to sprout this time of year? We have had some bizarre weather here for this time of year.Will the spouted seeds just establish a root system and grow for next year and poduce poppy blooms?I liked your photo of your Shirley poppies.
skimper, yes they sprout merrily at any opportunity. They are usually just fine through the winter unless they grow too big, hardy little buggers.
I have a lot of them up right now but they will probably die from, of all things, a lack of water. The snow blows away or evaporates off, so it actually dries out in my gardens during winter. I water my evergreens once a month so they are ok, but I am not going to water everything else!
Anyway, more will likely pop up in the spring if you put seed down in the fall as some do not sprout right away. Mine do come up heavily in the spring again, as you can see in the picture. Glad you liked it, that is simply Shirley poppies doing what they please.
Mulchmania :Thanks! for the advice on the poppies.I have enjoyed!everyones poppy photos.Keep the photos coming! I sowed a variety of peony poppies and a few of the single poppies.I can't wait to see them bloom in the summer.Another poppy photo,Shirley poppies with bachelor buttons.
Skimper & Mulch -- Those are such great pictures! I just love poppies -- I'm always so amazed by them -- they are just standing straight up with no need for staking or support. (And Mulch, I'm sure they don't need it in your picture -- LOL! You'd have to have a LOT of stakes!) BTW, I hope your mulch is down! just saw a weather forecast for your area, brrrrrrr!
Suzy
Suzy:You live in the same zone as I do.The temperatures will be dropping by Friday.What kind of poppies do you plan on sowing?
Skimper,
I don't remember where I posted it before, but I have been trying to grow poppies, off and on, for over 25 years! When the trading forum was going gang busters, I traded for every poppy they had -- any kind, any color, as long as they are annual I am sowing them ALL because the one goal I have for next year is poppies!
I am going to direct sow and also wintersow to make double-sure nothing goes wrong this time. My idea originally was to yank the poppies after bloom, except for a letting few go to seed, and try another flower in their place. I asked around, and nobody seems to do that because there isn't enough time in the season ...they just let perennials fill in instead. I guess I'll have to see what I get wintersowing to plug in the holes left by the poppies. I had planned for the whole back yard to be poppies, but as I learned more, I learned they don't bloom long enough to make it appealing to me.
Maybe Bluespiral or Poppy Power will see this and have a comment because the only people I ever knew who had a whole yard of poppies was an iris lady who had a single kind of bright coral poppy all over her yard that finished blooming juuuuuust as the irises started, and also a daylily man -- same thing, but just as the dayliliues started blooming. His were a very bright rose. And another lady, come to think of it, who has orange poppies and larkspur blooming to mid July, and then after that it just looks like she has weeds growing...I'm not sure what they are, but she has bright orange poppies and electric blue larkspur (now it 3 colored, I just drove by this spring) and her little cottage is white with orange shutters and an orange front door. All three of them have given me literally CUPS of seed and I never got even one to germinate, much less bloom. Some of it was my fault, and I know what I did wrong, so I am going to do everything right this year~
How about you? What kinds are you most excited about?
Suzy
Hello:Suzy.I always direct sow mine. We have had some crazy weather here.the temperature right now is 55 degrees.The weather will start turning cold again this Friday.I would go ahead and direct sow some of your poppies on the first dusting of snow.I sowed my poppies as a mix,since I like color.I sowed a variety peonys,single somniferums.I like about any type of poppy.This year I sowed some black peony poppies I received in a trade along with danebrog lace.I hope they bloom for me this coming summer.
Suzy, I have had problems with poppies before too, but am going to try again this year. I got some mixed single somniferums from a lady on ebay that were called Neon heirloom. Her photos were breathtaking. I've also got some Shirleys from a DG member and ordered some from eBay too. I wonder if the Shirley poppies bloom earlier and would be better to mix in with daylilies and Iris so they bloom before them?
Susan
The ones the Iris friend of mine had were the ones with glaucous blue-green leaves -- sort of cabbagy-colored, but with little spikes like a thistle on the leaf edges. I don't think they were necessarily sharp and prickly, just visible. They were very upright and only had a footprint of 2-3" or so. She had them growing between, over, on her show irises, so I know they didn't hinder the growth or bloom of the irises.
No one around here seemed to know what kind they were, even in a broad category-sense, but they bloomed before irises which would be early-mid May here. That's the kind that would allow for a second crop of something fast blooming, like zinnias.
Does anybody who grows poppies know what kind that could be based on my description?
Suzy
Papaver paeoniflorum
http://swallowtailgardenseeds.com/annuals/poppy_peony.html
Papavar somniferum paeoniflorum
http://www.parkseed.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDisplay?storeId=10101&catalogId=10101&langId=-1&mainPage=prod2working&ItemId=3159
This last one is just fun to look through. http://www.seedman.com/poppy.htm
:)
This message was edited Nov 30, 2006 9:42 AM
Great links Ticker! Those are some beautiful poppies....
Hey! Thanks for the pictures, Ticker!
I'm not sure it makes a difference, but there was only one bloom per plant and they were single flowers. The picture in the first link looked like the same leaves, except that looks like a bigger plant with more than one bloom per plant. I can't tell from the picture -- maybe that is a bunch of plants growing too close together, just for the portrait? Poppies are so pretty that no one seems to take pictures of the foliage -- just the flower itself. I have to get going right this second, but I'll do some searches later and see if I can get serious about identifying it -- in the broad sense of poppy species' name.
My Iris lady's plants had a single stem that grew straight up with no branching, and had one terminal flower. There was a large distance between leaf nodes (and leaves) on the stem, and I htink there were like 4 or 5 laves that were very upright and sort of wrapped around the stem. All in all, they were a rather small plant, about 24 inches tall.
Suzy
Thanks, Mags!
Illoquin, check out the last link I provided, maybe you'll find your poppy in there. :)