I agree with Kevin :-) In fact, unless you want oriental poppies all over your garden area (and yes, they are very difficult to transplant), I'd just cut off the seed pods, green or brown, and get rid of them. There is such a thing as too many oriental poppies! And are you sure they are oriental poppies? Peony or breadseed poppies (Papaver somniferum) are very common in this area and have now finished flowering and gone to seed. I'd always shake a few of their seed pods around when I pulled out the plants at the end of their season (these are annuals) and that provided more than enough new plants for next season. Typically, these seeds will remain doramnt until early next spring and you can thin or remove as necessary when they appear then and are still small.

So it's kind of like birds. I think I get it! I have to have more than one somniferum plant (probably) to pollinate right, will have at least one clump, I hope. BTW, I read again what you said before and should have read it better because I got redundant there. If they all grow, Livermore is oriental and then the generic nonspecific I planted is oriental, but I don't care if those cross. I don't care if the different rhoeas ones I have cross. Seeds for those are cheap enough, and I might get something special from a cross. So if I read you right and don't care what the other varieties do so long as they don't cross with somniferum, and I plan no more than one variety of that but enough plants to insure pollination in case they don't self pollinate, I should be ok then unless there are other soms nearby which I rather doubt. You really know your botany or taxonomy, wish I'd studied it more. Even so, when you get out in the world, you still have to study more about the specific area(s) in which you will be concentrating. Right now, I don't care if any of my other flowers cross, but it could become an issue if I want to try to isolate something, or up the odds with the dominate crosses vs. recessive. Echinacea I don't care what they do either, but some would. Oh, I do definitely care about my violas crossing, but am holding back a packet of the one seed I want most and hope there will be more available. Once I get those self seeding, I'm going to be getting all kinds of things, know that from years ago. It could happen that one is preferable to all the others, so if I can ensure purity and only grow one kind, I should be ok with that, too. Genus, species, I tend to remember that backwards, but it's logical really. Birds (don't know the latin word are the genus, and species would be cardinal, sparrow, etc. Maybe different cardinals cross, probably shouldn't have gotten into that. Like the red squirrel is disappearing because there are so many hybrid ones now, and only if occur in relative isolation will they breed true. I guess it all depends on the genes and chromosome count and more, but then humans vary as to chromosomes and are still able to produce reasonably normal human offspring. So there are exceptions.

For years, I collected CA poppy seeds and tossed them out in the spring. For years, I'd see a bloom or two in the fall. Last fall, I left them to self sow and this is the first year that I've had a bunch to flowers. Two other changes this year - we had a cooler then normal summer and the plants received much more water. Not at all scientific but I'll let some of them self sow again. I read somewhere that they need cool weather to germinate... I successfully WSed red oriental poppies, as well as pink and black peony poppies. I left a few seed heads on the red oriental poppies for self sowing but also collected some for WSing. Peony poppy seeds are too hard to find to leave up to Ma Nature - IMO - so those will be WSed.

Have you been able to grow those successfully in Sacramento? I've been trying with Thompson & Morgan Coral Reef seeds, and finally have one plant I think has survived. I'd like to get a higher success rate. What are your secrets? I'm in Roseville.