Red poppies (Papaver rhoeas) grow like weeds here but I’ve not had much luck with sowing or planting papaper somniferum in this Mediterranean garden. Either the plants died in the summer or the seeds never took. In October 2024 I started a last attempt and sowed three different kinds of Papaver somniferum in various locations:
- “Maxi: : 150cm high, white with purple patches at the base, flowering June through August
- “nigrum”: 100cm, pink with purple patches at the base, flowering July through August
- “Planète Rouge du Jura”: 80cm, pink with purple patches at the base, flowering May through June.
The two plants that appeared in the spring were impossible to identify clearly, because they were 180cm high, dark purple in color with very faint darker patches at the base and they flowered in April.
I did keep all the seedheads though and scattered seeds all over the place in late fall. We’ll see what pops up this spring.
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