Scruffy poppies - what to do with them?

[MyNameIsInigoMontoya]

We have a lot of very large poppies in our garden - not sure what sort they are as they came with the garden, but they are mostly bright orange-red (one or two pinky-purply ones) with flowers about teacup size, and they grow up to about chest height or would if I got around to supporting them.

The thing is, although I love the flowers, they are quite short-lived, but the plants themselves are huge, scruffy-looking things with big raggy leaves that take up loads of space and go quite ratty after they've flowered (and sometimes before). And the stalks fall everywhere too if I don't spend ages staking them.

So the question is how to have the flowers with less of the scruffy mess? Can you cut them back after flowering, or what do other people do with these? I would be sad to get rid of them altogether, but can't fit in as many other plants and flowers because of the big ugly leaves - our borders aren't that big and the poppies really take over at this time of year. Thank you!

I know what you mean about the raggyness of these poppies.
I would recommend investing in some good supports as individual staking always looks weird. I use something like this:
www.plantsupports.co.uk/p/grow_through_61cm_x_94cm_a0050

The trick is to put them in before the plant grows large, sometime in May would be good.

After flowering take them away, store til next year (or use them somewhere else in your garden) and cut the poppy plants right back to a rosette of new leaves which should be there at the base - if not and they are raggy, just cut everything away.

Thanks, that's v useful! I like some of the other bits on that site too - quite tempted by a diagonal row of potholders along the back wall of the house to put some herbs or flowers in!

I will go and cut them back later, looking forward to getting a bit of space back. I already chopped some overgrown geraniums down the other day (only just found out you could do that) and it looks much better there now.

Also, you could plant something that's later to flower - dahlias or Japanese anemones, say - in front of the poppies, so that their new foliage disguises some of the mess.

Off to check out that website ....

Just chopped them in my lunchbreak, very satisfying! There weren't actually as many separate plants as I thought, they were just so big...

I can't plant much more as there is so little space, it's an established garden with borders that aren't all that deep and have some big/overhanging bushes at the back, and everything has just gone HUGE because of all the rain. But the upside is that the things that are already there next to the poppies will probably just move into the gap - there's lots of sedum waiting to flower, and some lilies coming soon too.

I'm using a lot of Salvias this year to fill mid summer spaces left by poppies, geranium, delphiniums etc. Although with the separate red white and blue plants I bought then planted together I've gone all accidental Olympic.

I think accidental ( or even deliberate) Olympic is fine!

Thanks for this post - those supports will be perfect for my large daisies next year

I garden professionally and I wouldn't be without these kind of supports. Staking is crap, it's for young trees only, nothing else looks ok staked - just strangled.