Transplanting Poppy Seedlings

Poppies are probably my favorite annual to grow in my garden because they're dependable flowers, attract bees, and grow in poor soil. I've blogged about how I sow poppy seeds in the garden, but they're prolific self-seeders too. Poppy seeds remain for years in the ground and will sprout when the soil is turned over and they're exposed to sunlight. While I save poppy seeds from my garden, I let most fall to the ground and self-sow. The one downside of self-seeding poppies is that they'll germinate in clumps which grow weaker poppies, but I've found transplanting poppy seedlings into other areas of the garden to be pretty easy after some observation and experimentation.

Flanders Poppy, Corn Poppy, Papaver rhoeas L

I love growing annual poppies in my garden because they provide color, movement and pollinators like bees seem to be really attracted to them. This year Flanders poppy, or corn poppy, made an appearance in the garden and while I like the blooms just fine I don't think I'll plant it in my garden again. The flowers aren't as interesting as other garden poppies that I grow, even if they are more prolific bloomers. Below are pictures of Papaver rhoeas L. from my garden this past week.

Sowing Poppy Seeds

A few years ago I was gifted a handful of poppy seeds by a gardener on a gardening forum I participated on. The seeds came with the instructions to just "scatter them in your garden in February" and the promise that soon I'd have more poppy seeds than I knew what to do with. Not knowing any better, I followed the instructions to scatter the seeds in February. I got more seeds later in the month and scattered those too.

Then around the middle of March I started to wonder if scattering the poppy seeds when it was still winter and snowing in Chicago was the best idea. This is how I sow poppy seeds in my garden. 

(Lavender Peony Poppy)

Poppies In My Garden

Last year I received poppy seeds in trades and never having grown them before didn't know what to expect. I was told to just scatter them on the ground in the winter and in the spring I would have more poppies than I knew what to do with. The blooms and colors were amazing and there were some poppies that I wish I had labeled and saved seeds from more carefully. I got a lot of comments on them in the garden and even some quizzical looks from people who wanted to know why I was growing poppies. Since I'm gardening in an urban area I sometimes played dumb and pretended they weren't poppies and say would they were something else.