Poppies in a pot: an easy method for cultivating swaths of color
I’ve had poppies on the brain ever since I took a trip to England last May. Until I saw this elegant display of poppies (photo below) at Great Dixter, it never occurred to me to grow them in pots Since then, I’ve been obsessed with the idea.
As an avid papaver afficionado, I long for big glowing swaths like the one you see below. Sadly, I have not come close to achieving this little fantasy.
God knows I’ve tried. Each spring I clean up beds and fling seeds about like a madwoman. I practice patience - they take awhile to germinate, about three weeks depending on the weather. But that’s the easy part - it’s what happens next that presents the problem. About the time seedlings begin to emerge, up come the weeds. If you don’t get rid of them they’ll choke out the baby poppies. If you weed, you can accidentally pull seedlings up. And it’s so easy to step on them! As they get bigger I realize I’ve misjudged the amount of room they need to coexist between existing perennials. Then competing perennial foliage smothers the new plants. And you’re stuck - poppies do not like to be transplanted. They fold pretty fast if you try to move them. So, I’m left with smattering rather than swaths of poppies. Can anyone else relate to this? If so, read on.
The fantasy: I’ve been thinking about this all winter. The Great Dixter method of growing poppies in ornamental pots appealed to me, but why not take it a step further and grow a bunch in leftover plastic nursery pots? That way, I could put them wherever I wanted. Maybe transfer them to a nicer pot, or hide the plastic pots between perennials in the garden.
I went outside, unearthed some large black pots and got to work. I bought one more attractive plastic pot I could leave outside to experiment with.
I filled the pot with Miracle Gro potting mix. Whatever you use, make sure to choose a mix with good drainage or the seeds will rot.
This may seem obvious, but labeling isn’t my strong suit. To make sure I remembered what I planted and when, I laid in a supply of plastic markers and a sharpie to label each pot.
Per Kathy Purdy’s advice - coldclimategardening.com (her poppy growing tips are excellent). I mixed the seeds with sand in a leftover parmesan cheese dispenser. This method helps to disperse the tiny seeds in a more even manner.
You can see how it’s done in the little demo below. So much easier!
Here’s the finished pot, all labeled and ready to go.
I stashed the pot in one of my beds where I can keep my eye on it. At the moment, snow and rain provide enough moisture so it doesn’t dry out, if not I can always water.
The idea is to sow a variety of poppies in at least a dozen black nursery pots and stash them in the vegetable bed til they look like something. I’m going to stagger sowing so I’ll have them blooming in succession. I plan to move the pots into the garden when they’re ready and drop a few into snazzier containers for the front entrance, patio or whatever. I’m hoping that once they finish flowering, they’ll reseed themselves into the garden.
This little experiment hasn’t been much more work than sowing the seeds directly and I think it will be more effective. If you’re longing for big swaths of poppies, give it a shot. Fingers crossed - I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
Favorite seed sources: