Bread seed poppies

My friend has beautiful poppies that stay in bloom for quite some time .( she says they are poppies) ,so I got some Bread Seed poppy seeds and they have just began blooming , oh, so beautiful.
The trouble is the flower falls apart in 3 days ,and just a bulb of some sort it left . It is green and I don't find it attractive , will it flower again? or is this it for my beautiful poppy flowers

Once the petals drop from the stem, that is it for that flower.  The part that is left will grow the seeds for next years plants, or for culinary use if that is what you are looking for.

Neal Winsor wrote:My friend has beautiful poppies that stay in bloom for quite some time .( she says they are poppies) ,so I got some Bread Seed poppy seeds and they have just began blooming , oh, so beautiful.
The trouble is the flower falls apart in 3 days ,and just a bulb of some sort it left . It is green and I don't find it attractive , will it flower again? or is this it for my beautiful poppy flowers

Looks very nice

There are many different species of poppies. Some are annual and some are perennial. With my perennial flowers they produce more flowers, larger flowers, and for a longer season as the plant ages. The first year can be fairly unimpressive. In fact, many perennial plants don't bloom at all for several years after they first sprout.

I think bread seed poppies are an annual. I'm sure someone can correct me if that's wrong. They are on the list of plants I'd dearly love to grow but have had no success with. Pictures like yours remind me why I keep trying most years.

Beautiful flowers! Yes, the seeds form in the capsule; many bread seed varieties have been selected not to shed their seed naturally through apertures at the top, but you need to keep an eye out so you don't lose your crop.

After doing some poking around, it looks like at least some of the bread seed kind of poppies are perennial. I'd suggest living with the seed capsules this year.

If this is an annual poppy that will allow it to self seed with a larger number of plants next year which will mean more flowers and probably over a long span just from volume. If it is a perennial variety the original plant will put on a more impressive display next year and you will probably have smaller plants just starting out. If the same plants come back bigger and better, then you won't destroy all your flower chances if you decided at that point to deadhead all the seed pods.

Regardless of which type, these tend to be an early season flower. Typically it is companion planted with a latter bloomer to continue to show as summer wanes.

The poppy flower is easy to grow and produce a lot of seed per flower.

Yes, the flowers are beautiful, but they only last a couple of days.  But even after the flower petals drop, they'll continue to grow for a couple more weeks, during which time the seeds fill out.  That round bulb/pod where the flower used to be is what contains the seed.

One good-sized poppy pod contains hundreds of seeds.  My grandmother used to grow poppies in her garden and she would harvest pounds of the poppy seed.  She really didn't have to plant them in the spring, as they would volunteer all over the place.  

When you plant them, just broadcast the seed out there and rake it lightly into the soil.  It's easy to over-seed, so then you'll need to thin them.  If you don't thin the poppies, they won't get very big and will not produce a big seed pod.  They are a cool weather plant—they did well in my grandmother's garden up in Canada, but not so great here in Southern California where I live.

They are suseptable to white powdery mildew, particularly if they are too closely planted.  They like moist soil and seem to be heavy feeders (which seems to be a bit ironic to me, as they are such delicate flowers).  Well fertilized soil will give you big seed pods.

If you collect seed and want to plant them next year, keep the seed in the freezer.  It'll keep well that way and germinate better.

Best of luck.

Marco Banks wrote:The poppy flower is easy to grow and produce a lot of seed per flower.

Yes, the flowers are beautiful, but they only last a couple of days.  But even after the flower petals drop, they'll continue to grow for a couple more weeks, during which time the seeds fill out.  That round bulb/pod where the flower used to be is what contains the seed.  It's also what the opium growers use to create their product.  The cut a small vertical slit in the side of the seed pod, and then a day later, scrape the gummy paste off the the pod and cut another small slit next to the first cut.  They'll do this day after day with thousands of flowers, scraping a little bit of that opium paste off of each flower.  That's the stuff that they refine to make morphine/heroin.  Cool story, huh.

One good-sized poppy pod contains hundreds of seeds.  My grandmother used to grow poppies in her garden and she would harvest pounds of the poppy seed.  She really didn't have to plant them in the spring, as they would volunteer all over the place.  

When you plant them, just broadcast the seed out there and rake it lightly into the soil.  It's easy to over-seed, so then you'll need to thin them.  If you don't thin the poppies, they won't get very big and will not produce a big seed pod.  They are a cool weather plant—they did well in my grandmother's garden up in Canada, but not so great here in Southern California where I live.

They are suseptable to white powdery mildew, particularly if they are too closely planted.  They like moist soil and seem to be heavy feeders (which seems to be a bit ironic to me, as they are such delicate flowers).  Well fertilized soil will give you big seed pods.

If you collect seed and want to plant them next year, keep the seed in the freezer.  It'll keep well that way and germinate better.

Best of luck.

it is difficult to plant them without having to thin out the seedlings.

in fact getting them to start from seeds is full of challenges. They fry in the frost or Sun, get eaten, drown, damping off...

all things considered the planting method that does seem to work best is to water the bed thoroughly before planting. Then take a spice shaker filled with three parts sand to one part poppy seeds that is mixed well with the contents spread throughout the shaker evenly and sprinkle out the contents over the bed evenly until it's empty. for a larger bed refill with the same portions and repeat.

Then broad cast a layer of compost or soil over the top of the bed. Its better to not cover all the seeds then to cover them to much, so just aim for less than a half a centimeter.

Moisten the thin layer of sol and the seeds by misting the area don't wet the area to the point that the seeds are disturbed.

cover with a very thin layer of straw mulch at about a 7 to 1 ratio straw to air, meaning the bed is not covered completely, but you can see about 1 part soil surface per seven parts straw roughly.

Then mist the whole bed periodically until you see sprouts in 7 to 10 days.

the straw really seems to protect them and diluting them in sand before broadcasting the seed really helps to space them out so you don't get them in clumps.

after the first year they goto seed and seem to come up everywhere by them selves no problem, but getting them to start can be challenging.