oh too pretty I love it I can hardly wait for my poppies to put out some flowers I just noticed tonight that one of my Shirley poppies that hasn't been planted out yet has a bud It is raining so much I don't know when I will be able to get it in the ground ;~( Bonny

Beautiful poppies and peonies. We have several peonies alike. Sarah Bernhardt just finished but I should have staked or caged her. The blooms were so heavy they were leaning way down even without rain. I love the single pink. I have two or three singles and semi-doubles and want more because of the no caging thing. A couple of mine must have had some disease this year, the foliage looked funny and the one bloom was stunted and the Krinkled White did nothing. I don't think it was our late freeze. Krinkled was my favorite and I sure hate to loose it.

Sometimes, when I get a packet of mixed color seeds, I divide them in many places so I can isolate the colors and be more likely of saving pure seed. I remove the seed pods of those I don't want and maybe use those flowers in a vase (not easy with peony poppies). My pink peony poppies (my fave color I chose in oder to save pure seed) comes true from seed every year and is so easy. The seedlings usually overwinter here in z7b/8, too.

I love a very full, cottage look, so I tend to actively seed poppies in areas I know will be more densely planted come spring. I loved how the poppies emerged from drifts of Jupiter's Beard, Statice, Lomandra in shadier spots, and some other plants in the front yard. It helped limit the sight of the lanky plants certainly. Amidst the roses that are grown in a more traditional way, the poppies stand out like sore thumbs. However, I love the flowers and it's not a public rose garden, ha. I can grow lanky poppies and not feel one bit worse for it. I tried some of the 'Erewhon' and 'Blue Shift' Sweet Peas from Annies in that area this year and they were beautiful! Great cut flowers. It's probably a bit cooler here though. I had them on lattice amidst other climbers. 'Jeri Jennings' is next to some volunteer dark purple sweet peas. The picture above shows some sweet pea foliage, but the flowers mostly finished before 'Jeri' started blooming recently. Right now I've got Nigella springing up in an area that is almost exclusively populated by succulent/drought tolerant plants. It's a strange look, but fun until I consider that I'll need serious gauntlets to rip out the dead Nigella soon. Puya are amazing until you weed around them and I'm mostly growing the smaller types like P. mirabilis and alpestris. A lot like roses actually!