Playful Poppies!

Poppies are one of my favorite flowers to have around the farm all year long! While we don't grow the blossoms to sell (more on that later), their bright and exciting red adds little pops of happiness all throughout our field. Later in the season, their seed heads add a unique and whimsical touch to arrangements and bouquets.

Huge ruffled poppies make quite a statement

Each plant usually has only one blossom at a time, but there are always more buds waiting for their turn!

It's so fun to see a whole row of gorgeous red blooms!

Poppies are different from most of the flowers we grow in that they have to be planted in the fall. Before the snow falls, the seed heads from that year's poppies are dropping their seeds throughout the farm. Any poppy seeds that we want to sow on purpose are then also sprinkled on the ground and lightly raked in. These seeds stay dormant throughout the winter then sprout into the recognizable tall stems when mid-spring arrives.

It's always fun to see where they pop up the following spring.

Here you can see both flowers and seed heads

Poppy flowers do not make a good cut flower. Their blossoms do not last long once cut; however, searing the ends in boiling water helps them last 2-3 days in water.

While some flowers have the luxury of many petal layers that can be lost one at a time while the blossom retains its beauty, poppies usually only have one layer of petals. These are huge and beautiful, but most often fall off within just a couple days of harvesting.

Such big petals!

Even though we don't sell the blossoms themselves, poppies are still a valuable cut flower for us! After each blossom is pollinated, the petals fall off and the center develops into a rounded seed pod. These start out green and smooth, but eventually fade to a dried brown color and woody texture. We love using these seed pods in both forms! While green, they add a playful note to a bright spring arrangement. Once they turn brown, they are a wonderfully unique addition to an arrangement of sunflowers and rudbeckia, or a bouquet of burgundy dahlias and dark greenery in the fall.

A bundle of seed heads halfway between their green and brown stages

Early green seed heads with amazing long stems for harvesting!

Green pods are so fun in this bright wildflower bouquet!

Along with feathers and cattails, poppy seed pods give this arrangement an unusual outdoorsy beauty

Another benefit of these seed heads is an amazingly simple planting process. When the heads are dry and brown, the top opens up and you can shake out the little black seeds across the ground. Each fall, my kids and I love to look for brown heads to use in scattering the seeds back around the garden for next year!

As an added bonus, many of the poppies we grow can be used as breadseed poppies! We have harvested our own seeds from the brown heads in the fall and used them with much success in our baking endeavors! Lemon poppyseed scones are a Linden Lane favorite during harvesting mornings!

Here's another beautiful bouquet featuring poppy seedpods . In this lovely arrangement, the star shapes on the top of the pods has a sweet, almost delicate look. We are excited to use these in our upcoming market bouquets, starting next week!

The mint green pods perfectly set off the cute pinks and yellows of this market bouquet!

Look for poppy seed heads in your market bouquets this year! What flowers would you pair these versatile poppies with?

Best,

Jaime