I am interested! Please email me and i will tell you what i have for trade.

Did you buy plants rather than sow from seeds? California poppies don't like to be moved around as plants. I've done it, but I've taken a huge mound of soil with them to move them in the garden. They get transplant shock quite easily and the lower foliage will turn yellow. Are you sure you're growing California poppies (Eschscholzia californica)? I grow them quite well from seeds sown in the previous year. My plants winter over and have been blooming for two months. A few are just now starting to set seeds (that I allow to self-sow). Cameron Here is a link that might be useful: One example of my California poppies

It sounds like you have Oxalis pes-capri as the "clover" in your yard. This is a pretty large growing vigorous bulb, that will keep resprouting from the roots, and generally will outcompete California poppy if you try these from seed this time of year. The life cycle of the Oxalis usually starts with the fall rains, and starts dying back to the ground in late spring/early summer. If the Oxalis is in dense stands, it will smother out almost any other plant from seed that is also winter growing. I'd suggest you start the poppies from seed in areas that are clear of this weed. You'll find that the Oxalis is rather difficult to eliminate completely, unless you plant densely growing plants that are taller than it, and are perennial so that they can get large enough to outcompete the Oxalis when it starts growing again in late October/November.

Terri, that was a good article. I wish the article had included a picture of the poppies, though. I got some seed marked "Gray-Seeded Poppy" in a bunch of seeds mailed to me as bonus in a seed trade. I have seen posts by people who say it is illegal to grow them so I'm glad to see in the article you provided the link to about "intent". I am one of those gray-haired grandmothers. Here is a picture of the poppies that grew from the seed I was sent: I thought the flowers were quite attractive. The center of the flower reminds me of a little spaceship. When the flower is done, it leaves a pod that looks to me like a little salt shaker on a stem. When the seeds have matured enough, the pod dries and shrinks back from a little scalloped "hat" to reveal holes. If you turn the pod upside down and give it a little shake, the seeds will come out like salt out of a salt shaker. They are, indeed, gray. Like the article said, I would think you could plant poppy seed from your spice rack. In the case of something like marijuana, you can get in trouble for having either the plant or the seed. So since we can buy poppy seed in any store, and I've never heard of anyone raiding somebody's spice rack, I find it a little odd that anybody's raiding someone's flower garden. Again, I suppose it would make a difference if you had an entire FIELD of them, as the article said. --Ilene