I'm suprised your poppies did nothing. They are great winter sowers for me. This time of year I used to throw out larkspur, but now it takes care of itself. And, with the freaky warm spells, I would tend to wait a while.

I gave my son a bunch of seed I had left over and sent him next door. She has a huge strip of dirt where bushes died a couple of years ago, so I had him him sprinkle it around.

We'll have to wait and see what comes up! Hopefully a hint?

My poppies did not sprout last year either, and I
would love to get some going this winter.Will sow
a few jugs. I sowed 2 pks in a huge pot late summer
knowing they prob would not sprout, so am hoping
they do this winter, I will cover it with some
light plastic. Happy gardening, caroline

I grow a bunch of differnt poppies. Are you speaking about the Oriental Poppy?

I have the bright orange poppies growing every year. The shoots from last year pop up in the spring, mature and blossom for a couple of weeks. They grow nice big seed pods and then die back. They can leave a hole in the garden if not mixed with other plants that have a different growing cycle.

The pods seed over. Just after the heat of summer, the little plants start growing. The ones that make it, and enough of them do to make the area a little crowded, produce the blossoms for next year.

Based on the natural cycle, I would tend to direct sow just after the heat of summer.

I enjoy the annual poppies. In my old gardens they would bloom all season long and when I moved in 2001, I introduced them into my new gardens through winter sowing. I winter sowed a lot that first year but only a few survived the transplant. My attempts to ws them in following years were not successful, but for some folks such as Bakemom they seem to thrive.

They have, however, kept going in the gardens by reseeding themselves. Now I direct sow them too, usually when there's a small amount of snow on the ground in winter or early spring.

The Orientales are perennial and as Evonne says, they do die back in hot weather, but the same plants re-emerge in the fall to let you know they are still there. In my gardens, because of our cool summers, the foliage remains all season. These are very easy to winter sow and will not be as fussy about being transplanted. I winter sowed some two years ago and now have LOTS for the June garden colour. You can get them in all kinds of colours so now I'm going to look for seeds of the pinks, whites, and peachy ones. :O)

California Poppies, although annuals, are so easy to transplant and will take a lot of abuse. Mine weren't planted out until early to mid July this past year and flowered like crazy. They were suggested to me by Trudi and I'm so happy I tried them. Great plant unaffected by insects, great in dry conditions, wonderful foliage, and beautiful bright flowers!! I will be wsing these from now on for sure! :O)

Do the Californias have strong stems, to support blossoms up straight? My orientals have weak stems, blossoms usually falling into the dirt.

Karen

I'm glad to hear the California poppies WS well. Does anyone know how well they do in a hot zone 8? I was a bit surprised that nobody was interested in my seed at the local plant swap. (One seed pack was 500 seeds, so I have a lot of extra.)

I've direct sown coreopsis (native variety), cosmos, and the chaff from a bunch of different seeds. I'm hoping for a surprise in that area. The other 300 packs of seed will be wintersown, somehow. somewhere.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that had problems with poppies. Mine did germinate, but they would get about an inch tall and die. I saw no signs of damping off to cause it either. They are on my list to direct sow.

I direct sowed some butterfly weed, only because I was tired of collecting seeds and already had enough seeds. So, I took them directly off the plant and tossed them on the ground in the appropriate bed. I have too much moving around to do in the spring to direct sow much. I'm looking forward to this winter and all the container sowing.

Martha