I planted poppies from seed in a new bed this year and had a wonderful
display, mostly bloomed out now, but the seed heads are attractive swaying
in the breeze. What does one do after the blooms? Do I need to pull them,
cut them or will they dry and break down by themselves? I want to seed the
area with zinnias.

In the backyard I let them disintegrate on their own. In the front where people
fuss about a thing out of place (tough shit on them!) I do remove them when they
get rangy. Right now my corn poppies are still going very strongly and when the
pods dry I will pull the plants. I throw all my seed out in the fall. Last
year I planted corn poppies, Oriental, and P.somniferum, larkspur, nigella,
gaura, datura, and they are all packed into every corner of the garden.

Victoria


On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 16:38:27 GMT, "grubber"
opined:

I planted poppies from seed in a new bed this year and had a wonderful
display, mostly bloomed out now, but the seed heads are attractive swaying
in the breeze. What does one do after the blooms? Do I need to pull them,
cut them or will they dry and break down by themselves? I want to seed the
area with zinnias.

"grubber" wrote in message
...
| I planted poppies from seed in a new bed this year and had a
wonderful
| display, mostly bloomed out now, but the seed heads are attractive
swaying
| in the breeze. What does one do after the blooms? Do I need to
pull them,
| cut them or will they dry and break down by themselves? I want to
seed the
| area with zinnias.
|
|

This has been a great year for poppies of all kinds. You can just
leave them alone and eventually they'll sort of dry up, break up, and
blow away. True poppies, however, have those very ornamental seed
pods. You can cut off those stems for ornamental purposes if you have
any. Any mature seeds that the winds haven't taken can be shaken out
of the pods and dropped where you want them or saved. We tend to have
better luck with new seeds than with saved seeds, but that's just us.
Some of those fancy poppies with the pinkish flowers and the paler
leaves (large plants) seem to return for some people, but we've never
had any poppies of any kind return from their own roots. You can go
ahead and plant your zinnias. Eventually the poppies will just snap
off at the surface, or you can cut them at ground level.