Grand Queens of the Cottage Border!

If you know our plants, surely you know our Poppies. We are quite devoted to them and their kin and every year we grow more than 20 varieties, including the amazon Breadseed Poppies, the easy breezy Papaver rhoeas or Field Poppies and an array of delightful species, including the elegant Papaver glaucum, the wildflowery Papaver dubium, the dainty Papaver species Greek Poppy and the ever-popular tidy yet brassy Papaver commutatum.

Their long stemmed, dramatic flowers, with their satin petals and intricate innards recall classic cottage garden scenes of yore. You could say they have garden grace and drama in spades.

While these plants are both easy and delightful to grow, and essential to the cottage garden, there are a few things you need to know if you do not want to live in The Land of Poppy Fail.

First and FOREMOST, plant them as early as you can. For those of us in mild Winter areas (i.e. the San Francisco Bay Area) that means NOW!! Poppies can tolerate a few degrees of frost, so do not be shy about getting out and planting even if it is a little chilly. As hardy annuals, most of the Papaver species we grow tend to faint in high heat, so it is very important to give them plenty of time to build up momentum in the ground BEFORE Spring hits in earnest.

For many of us here in the land of mild Winters, planting in Fall is optimal – this yields monster plants and more blooms, but you do have to mind the weather a wee bit. Heavy frost, deep freezes and hard rain can definitely set you back! It is a worthy gamble, but most folks still prefer to plant in early Spring. If you plant your Poppies later, they will still bloom, but their performance will be shorter and smaller (read: dramatic, but not AS dramatic.)

We grow Papavers later through the Spring season in part because so many of our customers are in colder climates and we want to be able to share Poppy lovin with people from as many USDA zones as we can! We hit the wall, though, around early April and a great many of the hardy annuals we offer stop being available after this time. We are just as much beholden to our seasonal swings as anywhere else in the country! (No blizzards or hurricanes here, though – KNOCK WOOD).

After early April it becomes more challenging to make your Poppies grow well. At this point, it is best to plant them somewhere in filtered or morning sun, and make sure that the plants stay well watered during heat spells. So, I will say once again, for added emphasis, plant ‘em as early as you are able!

Larger Papavers will definitely need staking, so plan ahead and keep some stakes handy.

We are often asked if Papavers can grow in pots, and the answer is YES but only for certain varieties. Papaver rhoeas cultivars can take it, as can P. dubium, P. commutatum, Papaver atlanticum and the Greek species Poppy, but they do better in 5 gallon+ pots. If you want to try the Breadseed Poppies in pots, expect them to get super sulky if the pot is even remotely small. It is almost like the roots hits the wall of the pot and the whole plant throws a little tantrum. Try a BIG pot, like a half-barrel or expect yellow leaves and weaker performance. Some things just do not like to be containerized!

Want to see which varieties we grow?

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