Highs like saucers
Ornamental poppies will keep growing tall if cruel to be kind is your mantra, writes David Overend.
It wouldn’t be June if there were no poppies. To many people, Papaver orientale is the flower of the herbaceous border and the one to be applauded and lauded. The leaves are attractive in their own right, but it’s the enormous, colourful blooms which make the plant so popular. It’s unmistakable, a giant among flowers and one which deserves a place in any garden – as long as there’s room.
But once those magnificent blooms are finished, the foliage flops and droops; it’s untidy and detracts from surrounding plants.
If anyone recommends cutting back the foliage of daffodils or tulips as soon as the flowers have begun to fade, then that would be cruel – and wrong.
Instead, leave the leaves to die back naturally because they feed the underground bulbs, helping them to keep healthy and fattening them up for next year’s growing season.
But if someone recommends hacking back the foliage of oriental poppies when the huge blooms are past their best, then that would be right; a case of being cruel to be kind.
So, be cruel, get out the shears and cut it down to the ground. Fresh growth will spring up and there may even be a second show of flowers later in the year.
Ornamental poppies never seem to last long, but what they lack in longevity they more than make up for with presence.
In late May, June, and sometimes into early July, they are impressive mountains of ferny foliage topped by those dazzling red flowers.
Many gardeners grow them because they are easy to cultivate and constant – every year, they start to push out fresh leaves in spring and then complete the picture with saucer-shaped (and sized) blooms.
As fast as poppy flowers come, they disappear. At best, each lasts a few days; at worst, perhaps only hours. But an established clump of ornamental poppies can produce dozens of flowers over just a few weeks. And they set seed like it’s going out of fashion.
So there’s the chance to sow seed now, then pick out the tiny seedlings and pop them into three-inch pots and finally plant them out this autumn (or next spring) in their new homes outdoors. Try to keep root disturbance to a minimum and things should be fine.