Poppy plants - new gardener question

[icapturethecastle]

Have tried googling but can't find a clear answer. Have moved to a new house with a lovely garden but I am a total newbie when comes to gardening. My poppies are all starting to go brown do I leave them in or pull out. Do I keep the pods and dry the seeds for planting next year (is this easy?).

Many thanks

You can just leave them they will self seed.

If they are the large oriental poppies... the big scarlet ones... you can cut all the stalks down (or leave them as decoration) and the leaves will gradually die back to nothing.

We've got lots of what I call 'feral poppies' - ie. we didn't plant any of them but we encourage them because they are nice. You can cut the seed heads off when you see the pepper-pot openings. You can scatter the seeds now or store them and sow in spring. You will get thousands! Some will have already started to self-seed. I prefer to cut them down once they have gone brown and we have harvested the seed pods, as they look unsightly after that. They are the easiest and best value plants in our garden, alongside foxgloves and nasturtiums that also self-seed and come back year after year with no effort!