True Red Annual Poppies

[KarenWorthin]

Hello,

Have posted now & then. I live in Northern New England. Now, I have a question about annual poppies. I grow corn poppies and some are true red but turn orange red after being in bloom for a time (week or two). Is there a variety that is deep red or even mahogany or purplish red? The sparkle of the field poppy is hard to beat. I also grow oriental poppies, Shirley poppies, Cedric Morris poppies, & some California poppies. I was not planning on growing any field poppies this year, but they reseeded and I have left many in place.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Karen

[zxcvbob]

There were some frilly double red poppies that resembled opium poppies but were a lot smaller growing in my back flower bed for years. All of them were bright red; no variations. They were annuals and reseed freely, but the dogs destroyed them last year and they didn't come back this year. I never figured out what the were, but I think they were a variety of Papaver rhoeas. I'm hoping there are still seeds in the ground that may come back next year if I can get the grass out out of that bed without turning the ground over too much and burying them deep. I saw some hollyhock seedlings in there this year after I weeded out the grass, from hollyhocks I grew 2 or 3 years ago, and a lily that I thought they had killed.

This has not been a good year for gardening; I hurt my back really bad over a month ago and it's just now getting to where I can work in the garden a little. At least the dogs are staying out of the garden and flowerbeds now. I have a wire around them that looks like an electric fence.

Bob, in Minnesota

[George Shirley]

We have those double red poppies growing in the front flower bed. Don't know the Latin name for them but they are a true red and the red lasts until the bloom drops off. Annuals that reseed as Bob mentions. We just let the seed cases burst open and then cut the rest off. We've had several varieties of red poppies over the years but many of them played out after a bit.

Here in USDA zone 9b they come up in January and are usually gone by April. They do make a beautiful show while they're with us and several people on our block have displays of them so they must be common enough to be at Walmart or the more common garden centers.

George

[Travis M.]

Karin

If [e-mail] is your real address you are setting yourself up to receive lots of spam. If it isn't then you should not use it. To munge your address you might use something like [e-mail] and then put instructiuons in your sig explaining that people need to replace the 2 invalids.

[I Love Lucy]

I'm going to order some from Thompson & Morgan. Some look very red to me. You can write them and ask. They might have some new choices in their Spring 2007 catalog.

want the Flanders Field ones, have some extra seeds I'll try and if they don't germinate, will buy some more because I'd like some red ones, too. My neighbor had some pretty red ones, but I didn't follow them too closely, photographed some orange ones, and there is a huge difference. I like the red better.

>

[KarenWorthin]

Thanks to all who responded. There is a variety of single poppy seed which is called "Cherry Glow" It is not legal here in the US evidently because Thompson & Morgan won't sell it. A shame. Will look into the double poppies.

Karen

I Love Lucy wrote:

[zxcvbob]

They are probably getting harassed by the DEA and that's why they won't sell them. :-(

Did you see their varieties "Flanders" and Lady Bird" I'd probably get a packet of each and mix them. They are single rather that doubles.

BTW, has anyone bought a pound of poppyseeds from a healthfood store or bakery supply and planted them? (I realize the germination rate is probably terrible.) What did you get -- a mixture of colors, or all white or lilac, or...? I may try that late this fall. In a bed separate from the one where my red double poppies were.

Best regards, Bob

[Jo Ann]

I've never tried to plant poppy seeds for baking, but reportedly "back in the day" the hemp seeds that were included in mixed birdseed were sterilized before inclusion (either that, or the government wanted us to think they were, LOL!) Not sure if this would apply to food-grade poppy seeds or not...or for that matter, whether food-grade seeds would be collected from poppies whose cultivation might present a legal problem.

Jo Ann

zxcvbob wrote:

[Stewart Robert Hinsley]

In message , [e-mail] writes

IIRC, Papaver commutatum doesn't have the scarlet case of the common Papaver rhoeas. I've also seen it said that the same is true for Mediterranean populations of Papaver rhoeas.