Simple Tips for a Garden Bursting with Color

A popular garden plant around the world, using annual poppy flower seeds to add life to a garden is easy to do. With a huge variety of species allowing for different colors, sizes and flower shapes to be incorporated into any garden, growing annual poppies is extremely rewarding. In addition, while many gardeners may prefer perennial specimens which return year after year, the ease in which poppies produce seeds means that ensuring a continuous supply is easy. And whether you want large blousy blooms, small delicate dwarf varieties, or elegant flowers that will make a statement, there is always a poppy to suit your needs.

Learning how to grow poppies is easy

While poppies will quite happily seed themselves around the garden creating surprising bursts of color where you may least expect it, sowing seeds is done best in peat pots. This careful management of seeds allows for gardeners to grow strong, healthy plants which can be placed where you want them, instead of where Mother Nature decides they should be. Learning how to grow poppies is easy, and done once gardeners will quickly wonder why they haven’t done it before. Fill pots with a seed compost not too rich in nutrients to avoid prolific leafy growth at the expense of flowers, and scatter seeds thinly across the surface. Cover with a thin layer of compost and water to ensure that the soil is moist. This is best done using a watering can with a fine sprinkling head attached, or a spray bottle to mist. The tiny size of annual poppy seeds will mean that any heavy watering will cause them to be displaced from where they’ve been sown. Alternatively stand the pot or tray in water and cover with a plastic bag, allowing the moisture to rise up through the compost.

Poppy flower seeds will start to germinate after 14 to 28 days

Seeds should be sown in spring, or for hardier annual varieties such as those included in the California poppy family, early to mid fall. These, providing that they are kept sheltered and frost free throughout the winter, will mature earlier than their spring sown counterparts, ensuring an early bout of flowering. After approximately 14 to 28 days depending on the variety, annual poppy flower seeds will start to germinate, sending up tiny spindling green shoots. At this time, when seedlings are large enough to nip with fingertips, it is important to ensure that numbers of thinned out to ensure that a few strong, healthy plants develop instead of large numbers of weedy plants which will ultimately not flower well.

Annual poppies in particular do well in poor soils

Keeping pots moist, young poppies will quickly grow and once they are several inches tall can be planted into their final positions whether it is a container or flower bed. Annual poppies in particular do well in poor soils, lending them to be suitable for areas of the garden which may be inhospitable to other plants. As flowering starts ensure that buds are removed as petals fall to keep plants producing blooms. Meanwhile, as the summer season starts to wane, let a few seed pods develop and ripen so that seeds can be collected and used for next years beautiful flowers.

Soon you will find it hard to remember a time without annual poppies

With such ease and simplicity, poppies are a welcome plant to all gardens. Reds, oranges, whites and pinks will brighten any outside oasis, provide splashes of color which are easy to keep and maintain. And with poppy flower seeds easy to collect and germinate, once a gardener includes poppies in their garden they will find it hard to remember a time without them.