Planting poppy seeds

[JobSearch2024]

Hi everyone! I have been given poppy seeds by a friend. If I plant them now, will they grow (or is it too late in the year)?
Thanks for any advice 😀

wait until september for flowers next year.

& from then on you will have abundant poppies, they just keep coming and drop so many seeds that we now have to thin them out each spring!

Thank you so much, both of you 😊

I have always failed on direct sowing of poppies and this year I've taken on a tip was to sow them in modular cells. It worked marvellously! My Amazing Grey and Pandora just about finished flowering after 6 weeks of continuous show.

@irridium can you explain that? I have scattered so many poppy seeds of different types, in different areas of my garden over so many years and they never never never come up! I love poppies so every year I'm massively disappointed!

In Feb. I sowed seed in modular cell trays under light and heat indoors and when they were big enough I transferred them in the greenhouse in March. You don't have to do it under light and heat, but I wanted a head start. By May I planted the small plugs out in my pots and they've successfully been flowering from about June since.

Ah ha! Thank you, I will try this. I don't have heat but my greenhouse is fairly insulated.

I've wasted many years and seeds too.

I do have other seeds (both direct sown and indoors) I can't get to germinate like nigella, Cal. poppy, strawflower, poach egg flower, phlox Creme Brulee, dauus carota etc., If anyone knows how to get these going, I'd be most appreciative.

@irridium what do you use for the light and heat?

Our Poppies have self seeded from day 1, we never knew how they appeared in the garden one year and now they just come back 10 fold each year with no help at all.
Same for Nigella, we had it in one small corner now it appears all over the garden. Marigolds as well.

@irridium - I can't get poppies to flower either but my poached eggs self seed everywhere and nigella do okay. I have very heavy clay soil though and where I have improved the soil I haven't any of these. And now I realise my marigolds haven't flowered since my last "improvement". Hmmmm

Daucus carota is simply wild carrot so you could try treating it as a culinary carrot

Annual poppies tend to flower on disturbed ground - I've never sown any but often get a few if I've dug over a section of border.
Do the posters who get repeat flowering dig or perhaps quite vigorously hoe at all?

Annual poppies tend to flower on disturbed ground

Apparently they can survive dormant for up to 40 years. That's why so many flowered in Flanders after WWI

@Botanicvista Thank you! I will hold off planting the poppy seeds until September.

I'll do that next year in my raised bed and hopefully, some may come up.

I do get the normal lilac poppies that come up, so I no trouble with these as I leave a few to self seed.