"Roscoe" wrote in
:


"Thes" wrote in a message:
The good news is poppies are a doddle to grow from seed, so go
back to the roadside in a few weeks when the flowering is all over
and the plants look pretty much dead, snip of a few seedheads and sow
them next spring right where you want to grow them.
I'm a big poppy fan - P. bracteatum is a wonder...

Thes.
---------------------
Last year and the year before I did just as you recommend, gathered
field poppy seedheads. Shook the seeds out around the wildflower part
of my garden and guess what? Not one germinated. The same with
teasels and white campion. I asked for advice from a gardening
friend who said that he thought that my soil is far too rich for wild
flowers and that they will only grow in impoverished soil. Why then do
I have red campion and alkanet growing very happily almost everywhere?


Apart from the suggestions already made, it could be pests. I have tried
red field poppies repeatedly, but the same thing happens - the slugs munch
the seedlings before they get to flower. I thought at first they weren't
coming up, then realised that they were - they just didn't last long enough
to bloom.

I guess that the disturbed earth that favours poppies does not favour slugs
so much.

I too have forests of red campion ;-)

Victoria