For the money, they're easy to start from seed, but may require 2 or 3 years to reach flowering size. Now would be an excellent time (at least in my zone) to order seed and plan to plant soon.

Oriental poppies seem to be one of those old fashioned garden perennials that seem to have fallen out of current favor :-) Perhaps because they can look so awful after their relatively short bloom cycle. At any rate, they do not seem to be offered as widely or in the range of cultivars as they had been even 5-10 years ago.

I happen to love them for their big and very colorful showy flowers but then I am a big poppy fan, period :-) I find most of mine at local nurseries and have requested they bring in specific cultivars I am looking for, as wholesale growers often offer more that you see available retail (two local wholesalers have more than 25 different cultivars between them).

I agree that growing from seed may provide the widest range of possibilities. Eden Brothers also sells rooted starts as well as seeds.

You could look at Jungs seed, they have a good selection of named varieties including some of the newer ‘super poppies’. Their reputation is ok but don’t expect huge plants. I would guess either bareroot for fall planting or small potted plugs, but of course you could contact them for more info. White flower farm also has some. They say barefoot, I would guess they’re the same quality as jungs.

i only see these occasionally at the nursery and they’re always either seed strains or old varieties, but still tempting to give a try. Mine died out years ago, you have me thinking about them again.

thank you all SO much for these suggestions--i am hunting around at Eden and Jungs and Bluestone as we speak!

gardengal, these Eden Brother varieties are INCREDIBLE. going to take a chance on Double Black, I think. Or maybe Danish Flag?! https://www.edenbrothers.com/store/poppy_seeds.html

John, both of those are annual poppies, not the perennial Papaver orientale. But they are very easy to grow from seed!

I just placed an order on this site: https://www.onestoppoppyshoppe.com/perennial-poppy-seeds?chargeId=e656d427-e955-453d-be1e-30ca25897e4c

They have interesting varieties. I usually buy live plants but could not find Princess Victoria Louise anywhere. Hope this helps!

It's not a huge selection, but American Meadows has several varieties of Oriental Poppy available for bare-root fall shipping:

https://www.americanmeadows.com/perennials/poppy

You can get them from any of the nursuries