![]() Originally from Mesopotamia, the red poppies spread into southern Europe, southern Asia, and north Africa. They have also been hybridized to create the Shirley poppy. ![]() Red Poppies (Papaver rhoeas) are annuals also called Flanders, corn, and field poppy. Technically these are short-lived perennials, but most gardeners grow them as annuals. Plants spread to 18 inches wide with green foliage and produce fragrant flowers on 3 foot stalks that can be 3 to 4 inches across. If your night-time temperatures get much over 70 degrees before July, these are not a good poppy for your area. These poppies do best in cooler zones (USDA Zones 3-7) and mildly acidic soils (pH 6.0 to 7.0). Iceland Poppies (considered Papaver nudicaule) are a hybridized swarm of annual species from boreal (sub-polar) regions of Europe, Asia and North America, but not from Iceland. The secret to success with poppies is to select the best species for your zone and soil type. The ephemeral flowers open to delight us with shimmering colors in a wealth of shades, from dazzling white to cream, and through the spectrum to yellow, golden, orange, peach, pink, red, scarlet, lavender, plum, purple, and mahogany. Either way, poppies are pure joy to have in the garden or scattered across the landscape. Most commonly, gardeners can choose from the annual poppies grown each year from seed (Papaver, Eschscholtzia), or perennial poppies that come back from underground roots each year (Papaver, Stylophorum). And those are just the wild species! Plant breeders have been playing with poppies for thousands of years, and now there are almost too many cultivars and varieties to choose from. Flowers can be smaller than a thimble or larger than a dinner plate - plus they come in colors from translucent white through ivory, yellow, golden, orange, and red, even ranging into shades of blue and purple.īotanists divide poppies into almost 800 species grouped into 42 genera. They range in height from less than an inch high to over 20 feet tall. ![]() ![]() Poppies are a large family of plants that includes annuals, biennials, perennials, and even semi-shrubs and small evergreen trees. Poppies are found around the globe from icy cold tundra to broiling hot deserts, mostly in the northern hemisphere. ![]()
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