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05-03-2003, 01:23 PM

ojunk (Newbie Gardener) wrote in
:

All the seed packets seem to say poppies should be sowed where the are
to flower. Is there anyone who has had success sowing them indoors and
transplanting them? I'm scared I wont be able to tell them apart from
any annual weeds that spring up.

I have never had much luck with them either way. They always seem to
grow where they want to, not where I want them to!

I had most luck taking fresh seedheads and sprinkling the seed direct
from the 'pepperpot' where I wanted them as soon as the seeds were ripe
- but even then I didn't get great results. I don't think they like
being packeted.

Oh, this is the wild red poppy and its relations I mean. Opium poppies
are much easier, and though they aren't very distinctive as tiny
seedlings they quite quickly develop those fleshy pale leaves and can be
weeded then.

Good 'just sprinkle on seed' plants that are really, really easy you
might want to try:

Love in the Mist (Nigella) (very distinctive leaves - you will easily
spot them even as young seedlings)

White Alyssum (good honey scent but look like any random weed until
several weeks old)

Virginia Stock (ditto for Alyssum)

Aquilegias (bog standard wild variety - refined ones worth growing in
pots first. Distinctive easy to spot seedlings)

Those dratted blue things, what are they called, with the grey blue
leaves and the little purple honey-scented flowers. Someone will know.
Pretty, but plant once and be forever plagued...

nasturtians (seedlings easy to spot with distinctive leaves)

bog-standard golden marigolds (ditto for Alyssum except the smell).

Victoria