Nell,

I believe bagel/poppyseed claim was made by Lauren Springer when she was a young housewife with little money, back before she was famous and wrote her first book. But hey, that's how a neighbor & I (we were really broke that year) acquired our now current crop of cosmos by scouring the alleys for free seeds.

I have the breadseed poppy, however, from a 50 cent purchase of seed made from a local gardener I met on a garden walk 5 years ago. The first couple of seasons I had a semi double pale pink & peony type deep red poppy. Since then they've completely reverted to just a single pale pink poppy. I only get a few now each year, and they pop up in the most amazing places like between the cracks of flagstone, but they sure are pretty and worth waiting for each year to flower.

I love poppies, and grow several types.

I have one sort, I belive it IS the Opium/breadseed poppy, that I have been growing for years. It is a wonderful single pink flower with a lavender colored center. I love the sea-foam green color of the leaves too! I like them because I can just throw out seed in the early spring, whithout even covering with soil, and they will come up! They do appear in strange places though. Several years ago one came up in the crack in the front sidewalk. It was in full bloom when I had a yard sale and most people stopped to stare at it and ask what it was. Two years ago I got a wonderful mutation; it is a sort of double. It has the large outside petals with curly petals on the inside.

I also have a few Corn and Shirley poppies. At least I believe they are. They came from a wildflower mix. And last year I grew a wonderful double Shirley poppy. Gorgeous!

I have tried the Iceland poppies several times without success. I bought plants at Lowes. I think I may have more luck with them if I started them by seed.

I treid an Oriental Poppy several years ago and it died not long after planting. Then the nice mail-lady, who is unfortunantly not on this route anymore, asked if I might like to trade my pink breadseed poppy for one of her red/orange Oriental Poppy plants. It took a few years, but now it is doing wonderfully. It likes miserable conditions. I want to try the purple 'Patty's Plum' sometime.

Two years ago I bought Papaver rupifragum (Spanish Poppy) 'Double Tangerine Gem' on a nursery sale rack for one dollar. I didn't think I would have much luck with it. But to my surprise it came back the next year with a couple hundred children. It is a great filler plant. The flowers are small and double orange. The only thing I can say against it is that the orange color fades to white at the edges. It doesn't make much difference to me, but I am sure many would find it an outright dissapointment.

I always save seed for next year. I also dry the poppy seed-heads and string them on wire to make a nice garland. It is interesting to see how seed-heads differ on each species.
CMK

Ah-ha - Nell you have solved a problem for me. I got some poppy seeds too late to sprinkle on the earth. So, Xmas day I will spread them onto the snow!! Yea!

Nancy.

I've never grown poppies. Why do people seem to like them so much?

I planted mine in late October and I have frilly little seedlings right now. I also dumped out the breadseed poppies from my kitchen so that I could use the shaker to mix the other poppyseed with sand.

Cameron

You'll have to see a tightly packed bud burst open and finely creped silk-like petals flutter in the wind to understand it.

They mix well with others, too. Larkspur, snapdragons and nicotiana bloom with them, to name a few.

I grew the Iceland poppies from seed last year and they were nice but instead of mixed colors, I got only orange. The foliage was an airy grey-green. The blooms lasted until the hardest frost. I will plant them again.

I just planted mine few days ago. Last year they were planted in spring - way too late for us here in zone 8, so nothing happened. I am very excited to see them grow and multiply next year!
How can one NOT like poppies?

I've just never planted them. I have seeds. So all I need to do is scatter them? Full sun?

Oooo, I love poppies, and the photo you put up is gorgeous, Foxesearth.

I did sprinkle a variety of poppy seeds out in Sept./Oct. Maybe I should put out more? Hmmm, I think I will. We're 16" below our normal rainfall this year, so I have no clue how they will do.

A ring of poppies

Libby - those are Orientals, right?? What is the name?

Nancy.

Yes, Nancy.
Oriental Poppy Coral Reef

I didn't stake correctly and ended up lifting them with string. Usually, I stake as I do peonies.

Libby

{{gwi:673489}}

Lauren's Grape Poppy, just another reason why we love them!

Pulllleeeeaaaassse!!!! SAANNTTAAA!! I want those!!!

Nancy.

I love poppies because they like to be planted just when you are itching to get out there and plant. Here this is usually when there is still some snow and even more coming. Mostly I scatter seeds about. My experience is that this really does need to be done early (late March here). I tried buying Icelandic poppies several times as plants but realized just this year that all you have to do is toss some seed about in late winter or early spring. I also love they way they persist by self seeding. In my last garden I always had a few Lauren's Grape around from a planting years earlier. I have grown orientals and loved them but really having random California poppies all about from scattering the seeds in March is great gardening.

I absolutely love poppies. I just started growing annual poppies last year. This year a few came back here and there. A beautiful purple color....here's one

This year I got pink ones in the seed exchange. A perennial salmon poppy I had didn't come back this year. But I'm hoping to replace it with the patty's plum.

I wonder if you can purchase the poppy seeds from a spice section in a supermarket and plant those? If scraping seeds from rolls work, then perhaps planting those made for cooking will?
If someone has an idea - please let me know. Thank you!
~Natalie

Oh, I just love those purple colored poppies!
-Natalie, I think that would work. But if you are going to go out especially to by spices or rolls you might as well just get a seed pack. There are also several seed trading forums here.

Do you guys ever plant breadseed poppies later to get a summer crop of flowers? I usually plant some early in the spring, when the the ground has just thawed, and then later after that. When the first plants stop blooming and die back I have new ones that come up in early summer.

Here is a pic of my Papaver rupifragum 'Double Tangerine Gem'. The original plant made if thru last winter, and also brought with it a ton of seedlings. The seedlings bloomed that same year.
{{gwi:769056}}
CMK

Ok, so I just started a trade for some red poppy seeds. Not sure of the variety, but I'll be sure to ask once they are growing. I'm going to give them a shot. Is there anything I need to avoid mixing them with?