PlantSowGrow
How to grow Poppy (Shirley Mixed)
Papaver rhoeas
🌸 Flower
🌱 Grown each year
Silky, tissue-paper poppies in pink, red, white and picotee, from the wild field poppy. Sow once and they pop up for years.
At a glance: Sow mid March to late May.
When to sow, plant and harvest
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Sow outdoors
Flowers
Timed for a typical UK garden (last frost mid-April). The app uses your own town's frost dates.
Growing Poppy (Shirley Mixed): what it needs
- Light
- Full sun · 6+ hours a day
- Watering
- Water in dry spells; pots daily in summer
- Soil
- Poor, well-drained soil
- Spacing
- 20 cm
- Height
- 60 cm
- In pots
- Grows well in containers
- Feeding
- Liquid feed every two weeks once flowering starts
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 2–11
- Difficulty
- Easy
Step by step
- Mid March – late May · 4 weeks before the last spring frost
Sow Seeds Outdoors
Sow thinly where they are to flower, in a sunny spot, into raked, weed-free soil. Mix the dust-fine seed with sand and sprinkle it on the surface; poppies hate being moved.
- 10–21 days after “Sow Seeds Outdoors” · Late March – early April
Check Germination
Seedlings should appear in 10–21 days. Keep the soil moist. If sown outdoors, thin them to 20 cm apart once they have two true leaves.
- 59–89 days after “Check Germination” · Late May – late June
First Flowers
Take a photo for your journal!
- Mid October – early November · around the first autumn frost
Clear or Collect Seed
When frost blackens the plants, pull them up for the compost heap. Leave a few seedheads first if you want to save seed.
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