Growing Poppies from Seed - Buy Poppy Seeds Online
The poppy is a beautiful flower and growing poppies (papaver somniferum) from seed is very easy. Buy your poppy seeds online, prepare some ground where you want them to flower, and scatter a handful of seeds over the surface, before covering with a quarter inch of soil.
Poppy seeds are tiny; the average poppy flower seed head contains over 1000 seeds, and so can be mixed with sand before scattering to spread the seeds out a bit.
Your ideal planting distance is around 6", so when your poppy seedlings come through, it is advisable to weed out the smaller ones, leaving only the bigger, stronger plants growing.
Poppies rarely grow taller than 18", but planting too close together will result in smaller, scraggier plants.
Poppies do not like being transplanted, so it is always better to plant directly in the ground where you want them to grow. However, if for some reason you choose to start them off indoors or in a greenhouse, plant them in biodegradeable pots that can be planted directly into the soil or into a large pot if you are growing them on a terrace.
Poppies are normally only planted in either autumn or spring. They do not need heat to germinate. In fact, they prefer cooler temperatures, somewhere in the early 70s during the day and 40s during the night (degrees F).
Autumn planted poppy seedlings may or may not survive the winter. However, in most locations world-wide most of them should, but it is always advisable to withhold some poppy seeds for spring planting just in case.
Some poppies are annual, meaning they will only grow and flower that year, while others are perennial, flowering year after year.
If poppies particularly like the growing conditions offered, they often self-seed, giving you an everlasting display, year after year.
Poppies prefer soil around the neutral mark (pH 7) and not too much water. Many varieties can withstand drought. They prefer free-draining soil to hard-packed soil.
Some varieties of poppy have been bred to provide longer lasting displays, but most have a flowering period of only two weeks or so, every early to mid-summer.
When the poppy flower display is over, you can wait until the poppy seed heads are completely dry on the plant, and then save the seed to provide future displays.
Poppy seed can be stored in a dry place at the bottom of a refrigerator for many years.
Buy Poppy Seeds Online
There is a fantastic range of poppy seeds you can buy online, and what is nicer in the garden than rows and rows of happy little poppies bobbing in the breeze?
They are available in a whole range of rainbow colours,to suit your mood or the colour scheme in your garden.
Poppies make the most wonderful displays, and no flower garden is complete without them. Buy your poppy seeds today to ensure your garden gets that wow factor that people in cars will slow down to look at as they drive past your house.
Papaver somniferum are fantastic flowers, and you won't regret growing them, as they reward you with a fine display year after year.
Papaver somniferum
As you can see, there is a huge range of poppy seeds available that should turn your garden into a veritable sea of color which will bring your enjoyment year after year.
Growing poppies from seedis a fantastic way to fill your garden with color at very little cost. Poppies take care of themselves once established, and there are so many different types and shapes as well as colors that you may not even want to grow any other type of flower once your poppies have taken over.
As stated already, poppy seeds have culinary as well as many other uses and so they are a whole lot more than just pretty flowers.
If you live in the country and are surrounded by fields, many of your poppies may naturalise themselves in the wild, and every little thing that helps the environment is not to be overlooked. Poppies growing wild attract a huge variety of wildlife, from butterflies to bees.
