How to Grow Poppies in Australia

Poppies (Papaver species) belong to the poppy family, Papaveraceae, and are grown for silky, short-lived flowers and decorative seed pods. Flanders and Shirley poppies (Papaver rhoeas), Iceland poppies (Papaver nudicaule) and the tulip poppy (Papaver glaucum) all flower well from an autumn sowing. They grow throughout Australia and do best from cool to subtropical gardens, and the usual mistake is sowing too late.

Three mistakes that matter

1. Sowing in spring. Poppies build a leafy rosette through the cool months before they flower. A spring sowing meets hot weather too soon, giving short plants and few blooms. Sow in autumn, in the months set out in When to plant.
2. Burying the seed or sowing it thickly. The seed is tiny and comes up best barely covered, so seed raked in deep often fails. A thick scatter gives a mat of weak seedlings. Mix seed with sand and thin as set out in Sowing Seeds.
3. Moving seedlings. Flanders, Shirley, tulip and peony-flowered poppies grow a taproot and seldom recover from transplanting. Sow them where they are to flower. Raise only Iceland poppies in cells, and plant them out young with the root ball intact.

When to plant

Sow as autumn cools the soil to about 16 to 24°C, with Iceland poppies happiest at the cooler end, about 10 to 20°C. One sowing usually flowers for several weeks.

Poppy seedlings are not frost tender, so cool-zone gardeners can also sow direct in late winter.

Site, soil and setup

Give poppies at least six hours of direct sun a day and shelter from strong wind, which batters the flowers in late winter. They like light, free-draining soil that is mildly acid to mildly alkaline, and they dislike strongly acid ground.

Where downy mildew has struck, sow the next crop in a different bed, as the disease can carry over on seed and old plants.

Container growing

Iceland poppies grow well in pots, and 'Victory Giants Mix' reaches about 45 cm. The 60 cm 'Single Red Flanders Remembrance' suits a deep trough. Use a pot at least 20 cm wide and deep, which holds about 6 L. A 20 L pot takes a small group, filled with fresh potting mix.

• Watering: keep the mix damp while seed germinates, then water at the base whenever the top few centimetres dry out.
• Feeding: from the first true leaves, water in fish and seaweed blend at 25 mL per 9 L fortnightly. From the first flowers, switch to liquid potash at the label rate, fortnightly.
• Position: as for beds, see Site, soil and setup.

Sowing Seeds

Sow most poppies direct where they will flower, and start Iceland poppies either in cells or direct. Due to quarantine restrictions and our shipping policy, we cannot send peony-flowered poppy seed to Western Australia or Tasmania.

Sowing direct

• Mix the seed with a little dry sand and scatter it thinly over the raked bed (see sowing tiny seeds).
• Cover with no more than 3 mm of fine soil or seed raising mix, and Iceland poppy seed with about 1 mm.
• Firm gently and water with a fine spray, keeping the surface damp until seedlings appear, usually in 10 to 21 days.
• Thin in stages once seedlings have true leaves, until plants stand 20 to 30 cm apart.

Starting Iceland poppies under cover

• Sow into small cells of seed raising mix and cover the seed very lightly.
• Water from below or with a fine mister, so the seed stays in place.
• Grow the seedlings on for 4 to 8 weeks, until they are big enough to handle.
• Harden off the seedlings over one to two weeks first (moving them outdoors for longer each day so they adjust to sun and wind).
• Plant out 20 to 30 cm apart at the depth they grew, without breaking the root ball. Water in with seaweed solution at 30 mL per 9 L to ease transplant shock.

Peony-flowered poppies are forms of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). Growing that species without a licence is an offence in several states and territories, so check with your state or territory authority before sowing it.

Care by growth stage

Poppies are light feeders, and a bed prepared with compost usually needs little more than potash as buds form. Weeks count from sowing and vary with type and climate.

If growth stalls in poor soil, a light dose of all-purpose controlled release granular (NPK around 14-5-10) scratched into the soil can help.

Deadheading

Taking off faded flowers keeps new buds coming, while a few left on the plant give seed pods for drying or next season's seedlings.

• Early buds: pinch out the first buds on small plants, so a full, leafy clump forms before flowering starts.
• Every few days: cut faded flowers back to a leafy joint with clean, sharp snips.
• Iceland poppies: pick them often, because cutting for the vase does the deadheading.
• Seed pods: on Flanders, Shirley, Iceland and tulip poppies, leave a few pods to ripen for dried arrangements.
• Near bushland: remove pods before they ripen (see Common problems).
• End of season: pull spent plants and bin any with mildew rather than composting them.

Companion planting

Poppies share their autumn sowing months with many cool-season annuals, and their flowers are a favourite with bees.

Grows well with

• Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) and larkspur (Consolida ajacis): sown in the same autumn months, they flower beside poppies in spring.
• Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena): another autumn-sown annual that suits the same sunny, well-drained bed.
• Broad beans (Vicia faba): sown in the same months, and the bees that poppies draw in also work the bean flowers.

Keep apart

• Beds you dig or hoe often: poppy roots resent disturbance, and weeding close to plants sets them back.
• Short plants on the south side of tall types: Shirley doubles reach 80 cm and shade them for much of the day.

Harvesting Blooms

Cut poppies when the bud has split to show a sliver of petal colour, because a fully open flower soon drops its petals.

• Cut in the cool of early morning, taking the longest stem you can.
• Carry a bucket of clean water and stand each stem in it straight away.
• Sear the cut end in boiling water for 7 to 10 seconds, then return it to water.
• Strip leaves that would sit below the waterline, and change the vase water often.

Iceland poppies usually last 5 to 7 days in a vase, while Flanders and Shirley poppies last 2 to 4 days. Peony-flowered blooms pass in 2 or 3 days.

Common problems

Flowers hang their heads. Stems too weak to hold the flowers up are a sign of potassium deficiency, corrected with the potash in Care by growth stage.

Few or no flowers. Plants in part shade flower poorly, and late sowings meet the heat first, as set out in Three mistakes that matter.

Seedlings collapse at soil level. Damping off (Pythium species and Rhizoctonia solani) rots young stems, most often in cold, wet seed raising mix or soil. Read more

Poppies come up everywhere the next year. Flanders and Shirley poppies self-seed freely, and their seed can stay alive in the soil for many years. Poppies can become weeds in some areas, so check your council's advice before letting them seed near bushland.

Pests and diseases

Poppies grow through the cool, damp months, when snails, slugs and the mildews are most active.

Snails and slugs (class Gastropoda). They feed on tender leaves at night and can strip a row of poppy seedlings, leaving slime trails behind. Read more

Aphids (family Aphididae). These small sap-suckers gather on new shoots and under leaves, which can wilt or discolour and turn sticky with honeydew. Read more

Downy mildew (Peronospora species). Yellow to grey-brown patches spread on the leaves, with growth on the undersides, and the disease can travel on seed. Read more

Powdery mildew (order Erysiphales). Leaves yellow, then show powdery white spots. Caught early, a spray of 1 part full-cream milk to 10 parts water can slow it.

Grey mould (Botrytis cinerea). A grey mould spreads over ageing petals and buds, most often in cool weather with heavy dew. Deadhead promptly and keep water off the flowers.

Prevention first

• Thin seedlings to the full spacing so air moves between plants.
• Water the soil, not the leaves, early in the day.
• Check seedlings by torchlight after dark and pick off snails and slugs by hand.
• Hose aphids off shoot tips and leaf undersides with a firm jet.

Tips

1. For a remembrance planting, sow Flanders poppies around Anzac Day in temperate gardens.
2. Keep children and pets from chewing any part of a poppy, as the plants contain compounds that can harm them if eaten.
3. Collect seed from 'Red Tulip' once its pods dry on the plant, and store it cool and dry for next autumn.