Caring for poppies

Hi

I've had a lovely crop of opium and flanders poppies this year. I've taken off the pods and got the seeds out ready for planting. What I'm not sure about is what to do about the remaining stalks. Do I leave them to die off, or pull them up, or cut them back? I plan to leave the flanders poppies where they are but I want to restart opium poppies in a different location as they are too central to the garden and block out lots of the plants behind.

thanks for your help
Gavin.

 

Hi Gavin

Pull them out is a quick and easy answer, I use to grow opium popies that my brother gave me over 20 years ago from the Queens garden he used to work at Kew Gardens. from the 17th Century...
Last two years they never grew back and I had thought I had lost them, spring this year I was taking of 18 inches around the lawn to plant my daylily's and low and behold they have grown back seed just waiting for the fresh earth to be dug so I have saved the seed and pulled out the stalks
The ones I grow can be 3 inches high with a flower or grow to 3 or four feet high , I find this amazing they are a light pink purple with a serated edge very unusual, and with a true story behind them


Spruce

 

They evolved to colonise disturbed ground quickly, before grasses & other plants could smother them out. Seed can stay dormant in the ground for 50 years or more.

 

Thanks Spruce - I'll get clearing. I love your story - nice to have them back when you'd thought they'd gone

Gavin.