Poppies - The Beginning

Poppies - The beginning

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My love for poppies is really only very recent.

About 4 years agao I noticed a poppy plant in our garden and I asked my father where it came from and what is was (I live with & take care of him...).
He said it was an Opium Poppy that our family had always had over the road at our farm and it had been surviving at our current hous for 60+ years.

I got curious....
I saved some seeds, planted them, spaced them about 40cm apart and left them.
They came into flower in about 60 days but the surprise was how many poppies / pods they threw off.
The minimum they produced was 13-14 and my current record is 23 !
Anyway, I started saving the seeds and planting them each year... always the same strong healthy plant (strong in many ways...).

After a year I also bought some Tasmanian Giant seeds.
I grew these successfully and then started reading about hydridisation.

The Poppy is very easily cross pollinated so I experimented.

The Tas. Giant I had only threw off about 4-6 flowers / pods at the most.
This year IT HAPPENED !!!

I managed to cross the giant with the red and now I have a giant strain which has a minimum of 13-20 flowers /pods.

Isn't it impressive ?!!
The bees love it, too.
This plant was grown in a large pot so that I could control pollination.

I'll post more later.
Rachel.

Poppies - Papaver Somniferum (Tasmanian Pink above)