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California poppies won't bloom

12 years ago

I planted some California poppies after I took out the lawn and they bloomed and did great. The second batch, I planted after that just won't bloom. Is it too late in the season for them to bloom? I have mild weather all year in fact Oct. is the month that san francisco has the most sun, but is the day too short? I just weed around them, they are easy care and I did not admend the soil because I wanted them to have native soil so they would bloom more.

Comments (6)

dak56
12 years ago
I'd look for blooms again in late winter to early spring. Your native lawn sounds nice.
Martalan
12 years ago
Are you sure they did not lack of nutrition?
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Terri, that was a good article. I wish the article had included a picture of the poppies, though. I got some seed marked "Gray-Seeded Poppy" in a bunch of seeds mailed to me as bonus in a seed trade. I have seen posts by people who say it is illegal to grow them so I'm glad to see in the article you provided the link to about "intent". I am one of those gray-haired grandmothers. Here is a picture of the poppies that grew from the seed I was sent: I thought the flowers were quite attractive. The center of the flower reminds me of a little spaceship. When the flower is done, it leaves a pod that looks to me like a little salt shaker on a stem. When the seeds have matured enough, the pod dries and shrinks back from a little scalloped "hat" to reveal holes. If you turn the pod upside down and give it a little shake, the seeds will come out like salt out of a salt shaker. They are, indeed, gray. Like the article said, I would think you could plant poppy seed from your spice rack. In the case of something like marijuana, you can get in trouble for having either the plant or the seed. So since we can buy poppy seed in any store, and I've never heard of anyone raiding somebody's spice rack, I find it a little odd that anybody's raiding someone's flower garden. Again, I suppose it would make a difference if you had an entire FIELD of them, as the article said. --Ilene
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Laurel Zito
Original Author
12 years ago
Still no luck with these poppies, but one of them did bloom, but it was a Mikado California poppy. These poppies were some red CA poppies, I got the seeds at the home depot. I could have gotten plain orange ones, but those can be invasive if you let them go to seed. Maybe those would bloomed. We have lots of sun right now, more sun then in the summer.
Laurel Zito
Original Author
12 years ago
But, most of them still won't bloom, only these two, but I have like 50 more plants all over my "non lawn", and it's like just no blooms. The one plant, only has one flower. The orange ones have a lot of blooms on each plant.

Here is a link that might be useful: photo red poppies
terrene
12 years ago
Wow, those red ones are very pretty! I got some 'Mikado' in a seed trade, however the seeds did not sprout. Perhaps they are not a very vigorous cultivar. I think I'm going to buy some and give it another try.

I have 'Purple gleam' and 'Linen white' (which is more cream colored) in the front garden and they reseed prolifically every year. Never have to sow those. They look nice along the edge of the driveway.

In this climate, they are annual and have a nice flush of blooms in late Spring/early summer, then die back a bit in the heat and bloom less. I usually shear them to tidy them up, and they perk up in the fall. I have no idea what their growth pattern is in California, where they are native.

This is 'Linen white' -
vetivert8
12 years ago
I'd agree with dak56 and terrene - February to September. As they're well established already you could get a great display!

If you have naturally rich soil in your garden you might need to 'keep it skinny' if you want to keep on with the poppies. I know that I've seen this plant growing really well in roadside shingle, and around abandoned parking lots where the heat comes off the blacktop and the 'soil' is seriously thin.

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