Poppies- I can't seem to grow them, why?

[SirVixofVixHall]

I love poppies. I have some orientals, and some Welsh poppies, and they grow reasonably well in my garden, but every blooming (or rather not blooming) year I try and fail to grow poppies. Last year I grew some seedlings in gutters and a few did come up, but were pretty tiny. I really want clouds of those poppies that look like balls of crushed tissue paper, and the delicate fairy wing types. I scatter seed all over the place, thousands of seeds and yet I get one or two poppies. I had a friend who scattered seed outside her Islington front door and had lodas of them in the ruddy pavement, but in my garden? No. They refuse to grow.
What is wrong? Is it something I'm doing? Or not doing? Is it my soil? I know they hate root disturbance so can't grow them in cells, the guttering was a last resort!

Are you being too nice to them? They like very thin soil. they love pavements and patios. Or are the birds getting the seed before it germinates? Try scattering where it would be very hard for birds to reach the seed. (On the cat?)
Those massive tissue papery poppies are lovely aren't they?

Hmm..I don't know if I'm being too nice. Yes, maybe the soil is too good? Although I once saw a beautiful garden in Suffolk full of pink poppies like a mass of tissue pom poms, and the soil there was probably much like mine (at a guess). Could the soil be too moist? It is on the damp side in places, but not all. Birds could well be eating the seed. I have a cottage garden about a mile and a half from the sea, and it is full of small birds as I spend a vast fortune on them every year. If they are eating my seed I will not be amused. How can I keep it from birds? Last year I scattered about six packets of seeds, each packet had 1,000 seeds.....it is so depressing! This year I am also going to try them on the allotment. Just as a trial, as they aren't pickable are they?

You can pick them if you sear the cut stems in boiling water for a few seconds to seal the sap (works with euphorbia too). Not very long-lived though.

I have the same problem with foxgloves, in my previous garden they self-seeded everywhere, in this one with similar soil I nearly lose them every year.

You could put netting over the seeded area?

I am the same, I think the richness of the soil is to blame. When I have tried the only successful ones are those that have blown between the cracks in the patio. I am thinking of trying a pot with very poor soil. Maybe adding a bit of sand, not sure if it will work though. Watching this thread with interest.

i love californian poppies. have failed to grow those.

have you tried growing the larger, perennial poppies? These might be better in a border. I seem to have managed with these and there are a large variety of colours.

Yes I do have the perennial oriental poppies, I love them too, but there is something about those delicate wispy somniferum poppies that I love. I am going to scatter a load of seed in different trial locations I think. I know they like soil that is recently disturbed, hence the Flanders fields. But the soil in those fields must be rather good I would think, so I wonder why they like it so much?
I have a lot of seed-several different varieties of papaver somniferum (opium poppies, for those new to poppy types) then a few of papaver rhoeas (corn poppies) and several more papaver paeoniflorum (the paeony flowered type). And some icelandic poppies too (papaver nudicaule) . I am going to go all out this year, and then give up, weeping quietly to myself.
I really want nerines too, and every year I get leaves and no flowers. So i don't know what I've done wrong there either.....
Aircooled, you could grow foxgloves in pots, you could get them as young plants and then either keep them potted or plant them out, although you may need to do that every year if they don't self seed well. They don't seed terribly well for me either, but I usually get three or four plants scattered about and that is enough to keep me happy. I love foxgloves too. My mother in-law is very sniffy about the pink ones and insists on white only, but I like them all.

Sirvix I like Icelandic poppies and their transparency and I like corn poppies too. Perhaps the way forward is to scatter them on a seed tray and plant them out as plug plants? They do need sun.

I'm another poppy failure.

My best were opium poppies grown in a pot (although they're not supposed to like being grown in pots) on an inner London roof garden (so sunny and dry). All other seed sowing since then (various annual types) has not been a success, apart from a couple of self-seeded opium poppies appearing in random places. I have just been rooting about in the garden and it looks as if two out of three clumps of perennial poppy have disappeared over the winter too. Boo hiss.

My oriental poppies seem to only last a few years. They die in very cold winters, but a few have died this winter by the look of it, and last year I lost a couple too, even though the winters weren't terribly cold.
Funny-I did try growing poppies from seed in gutters so that I could just slide the whole lot out thus minimising root disturbance, but I only got a couple from that. When they do actually grow they are very small and stunted, not normal size. It is a mystery. I have a clump of Welsh poppies that comes back every year, but hasn't seeded all about the place as my mother's used to. I think I will give up on the damper beds in the lowest part of my garden and only sow seed in the big raised borders and the top terrace, it is a South facing garden , so mainly sunny other than under trees.
And the nerine mystery...?

Well what I've learned about nerines over the years and from keen and close observation at Wisley etc is as follows:

Plant them like irises with the tubers showing well above the soil, in a sunny place not shaded by foliage. The leaves come up first then then the flowers and if you mulch make sure the tubers are still exposed to the sun. They like a high potash feed like tomato feed when the leaves are out. They prefer the same sort of soil as camellias and rhodedendrons and don't like wet clay so if you are planting in a pot ericaceous compost can be good. Afternoon sun is best for them.

Perhaps they will do well with the poppies!

Camelias grow well round here, everyone has camelias, so at least that is a start. I have never fed the nerines, and they are at the edge of a bed but may well be a bit shaded by the foliage of roses. I think from what you have said I should move them somewhere more open. They are a bulb rather than a tuber though aren't they? So I should plant them very shallowly? I have a friend with them in her truly incredible garden, and they look so lovely flowering away at such an unexpected time of year.
This is my friends garden, for any of you on holiday in Pembrokeshire this Summer, it is beyond beautiful. www.dyffrynfernant.co.uk

Sirvix your friend is an expert gardener, her garden is stunning, she will be able to tell you all about nerines!

She suggested poor soil, and sun, but I think the shaded by foliage bit is something I hadn't thought of. Hers grow in front of the cottage garden wall. The garden she has made is completely magical, it is the loveliest garden I've ever been in. It sort of gradually melts into the mountains, and has amazing grasses and just wonderful painterly planting.

Painterly planting is such a lovely phrase. Melting into the hills is also lovely.

So at one point to me painterly planting meant Monet and irises and then Oudolph and grasses and now I think it means colour and form and melting in to the landscape.

I think you should have a long weekend staying in her Bothy in the middle of the garden, you would be in heaven.

Not enough mod cons, sirvix, I need creature comforts!

I’ve got a poppy plant doing very well -but no flowers. Any ideas why?