My experience with oriental poppies has been less than exhilarating, of course, I don't exactly have the right kind of yard, what with dense, but rich wet clay & all the amendments to make it workable. Anyway, bought 2 good sized plants plants, supposedly both red. Planted them in my good rich garden soil. Did okay, but one was orange instead of red, & it took 3 years of growing it to find that out. Dug up the red (know you're not supposed to move them because of the taproot) but couldn't stay the orange/red color clash. The moved one lived, but took 2 more years to rebloom. The orange one, which I didn't move, promptly died. Anyway, the red one started blooming well, a dozen or so blooms, and finally a year or so gave me a baby offset. Hasn't bloomed yet, hopefully year 3 will be a winner, but I sure hope it's not orange. Anyway, after some construction work, I found a place where it was dryer up by the patio near some bushes and a new pathway which cried out for papaver, dry poor soil & lots of sun. Bought 3 Princess Victoria Louise (beautiful picture Chelone!! just what I had in mind) 1 promptly died, other 2 grew slowwwwwly, 1 finally bloomed and it was orange. Anyway, dug out the orange, planted some white Royal Weddings, since I couldn't locate any more Princess Victoria Louise. They are growing extemely slowwwwwly, like 2 leaves a year. Bought 3 more, this time I could only find Salmon Glow, which won't work with rich pink, so the race is on - the bed will be whatever color blooms first & best and I'll trash the rest. Anyway, here is another 3rd year plant & it had better bloom, and please no more orange.

I have grown the perennial poppies for many years. They bloom early summer, get huge, beautiful, the blooms fade, then I have all these pods and stems which start to turn black over time. I paint the seed pods as they stand in the garden for another 10 days or so for added interest and until I can cut them out and plant annuals in where the large "hole" is. I wouldnt know what to try as it seems that there would need to be more growing time for another perennial to exist with the poppy. There probably is something, so I'll stay tune here to see what developes. My first thought would be a fall blooming type, asters, or fall crocus. Seems the competion for light would be a problem. Could you transplant some annuals in there or throw seed down such as zinnias or sun flowers after the poppies have past? The himalayas which I tried a few years ago, they like the woods, not at all like regular poppies. I have not seen them do well in Maine, so I appreciate seeing your post Maineflowergirl, I would like to take a trip and check them out.

I haven't had time to reply here--been having too much fun potting things up for the swap! But if you're gonna be digging in there, Sam, there's something you need to know! At the Spring Swap, I'm planning to show people how to propagate Oriental poppies from ROOT CUTTINGS! I'll be using root pieces that are about an inch long---so---in other words, when you're digging around the poppies, ANY little pieces of root that are broken off are going to rematerialize as NEW, big, beautiful plants! Like the Magic Broom in Fantasia, it multiplies! Just exactly what you DON'T want! Since you sprayed them with Roundup, I recommend you wait at least another full week to determine what has and has not been effected/knocked down/killed before you attempt to dig any to give away. Roundup takes a while to get in thru the foliage to the roots to have any effect, and after just one week, there's still stuff going on that you can't see yet. Also, being this early in spring, I'm guessing that there are a lot of individual plants that haven't even put in an appearance yet, and if they didn't have any foliage yet, the Roundup won't effect them at all. When you see plants that are looking strong and healthy in a couple weeks, you should be safe digging to give away. Now back to the "Magic Roots!" When you're planning to try to dig the plants/roots to give some away, I recommend you water the area VERY thoroughly 24 to 48 hours before you plan to start digging. That should help at least some in letting you dig/pull the roots out in whole, or at least larger, pieces, since the more small pieces you leave in there, the more plants you're gonna get. You need to water far enough ahead that you don't wind up trying to dig in mud. Ideally the soil would be soft enough to break up easily, more or less "falling" off of the roots! (But if you have typical Colorado clay, "ideally" probably isn't gonna happen!) But for trying to get rid of them, because of the problem with the multiplying roots, I think your best bet is to keep spraying them! Do everything you can to get them actively growing to get as much foliage as possible, and then spray, hitting ALL of the foliage, and leave them sit for 2-3 weeks---and repeat! (If you happen to have any of them growing into a grass/lawn area, Weed-B-Gon will work on the poppies the same as Roundup, but without killing the grass.) And remember that they'll go dormant as soon as it starts to get hot out, so do as much as you can before "summer" gets here! They usually re-grow some foliage when it cools again in fall, and you could continue your "eradication project" then! And as everybody else has said, be sure if any of them bloom, you don't leave the seedheads on long enough to drop seed! Do you know about our Spring Swap? This one is gonna be in Thornton, on the north end of the Metro area, so it's not too far away from you! If you should decide to come, I'd love a few of the double orange roots to use in my propagation demo! :-) Kinda funny how one person's Trash is another person's Treasure! I'll link the swap thread below so you can find out more in case you haven't seen it yet! Welcome to RMG, Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: Spring Swap - 2011

Actually I think coral is a good description for the poppy in Dave's photo too. It is a pretty color, especially combined with other deep blue flowers or deep purples. Photos can be deceiving, especially pale ones, but I see that poppy colour as having an orange undertone - like a drop of orange paint, perhaps half a drop of red, with lots of white added. For me pink can't have any orange undertone. Pink would be a drop of red paint with lots of white with no orange undertone. When it comes to calling anything mauve or purple or plum I think - a drop of red paint, 1 or more drops of blue and lots of white and / or some black for darker shades. Forgive me if I seem picky - I trained as a florist so I think in pure colours from the colour wheel.