California Poppies

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jmw

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #15 on: November 22, 2013, 03:54:59 AM »
Wild Caliornian poppies mostly seem to germinate in autumn here and overwinter as small plants, although I do get some popping up in spring. I have just planted some Eschscholzia lobbii out in my unwatered gravel garden, so looking forward to them flowering.
http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2011Jun251309019416Log_7_of_2011.pdf
Cheers Jo
Jo Wakelin
Gardens in Central Otago, New Zealand, with  -12C to  37C, and 250 - 400mm annual rainfall. Mad keen on cold hardy, drought tolerant plants.Member RHS, lecturer Horticulture.

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Alisdair

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #16 on: November 28, 2013, 12:30:08 PM »
We sowed a lot of California poppy seed (after the MGS meeting in California a few years ago), in a stony dry part of our hot Greek garden. They came up and flowered quite abundantly in their first spring. Only a few of the resulting seeds germinated, though, so the following year there were far fewer plants. In the third year there were none.
So it'll be interesting to see whether your sowing increases through the following generations, Mike, or dwindles away as ours did. I suspect your garden has slightly more generous conditions for them than ours, if not so generous as in Jo's wonderful Central Otago pictures.
Alisdair Aird
Gardens in SE England (Sussex); also coastal Southern Greece, and (in a very small way) South West France; MGS member (and former president); vice chairman RHS Lily Group, past chairman Cyclamen Society

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MikeHardman

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #17 on: November 28, 2013, 03:31:17 PM »
Alisdair,
Thanks; useful to know. I shall be sowing very soon, and keeping notes on developments, hopefully with some photos to share. I have some other seeds to sow in the same place (eg. bright red flax), so it will be interesting to see which do best.
Mike
Geologist by Uni training, IT consultant, Referee for Viola for Botanical Society of the British Isles, commissioned author and photographer on Viola for RHS (Enc. of Perennials, The Garden, The Plantsman).
I garden near Polis, Cyprus, 100m alt., on marl, but have gardened mainly in S.England

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Alisdair

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #18 on: November 28, 2013, 05:57:52 PM »
If your bright red flax is the so-called Algerian flax, Linum grandiflorum, we were rather surprised when one of our Californian seed mixes turned out to have included this: it did actually persist for us for more years than the Californian natives, and was a splendid splash of colour that blended surprisingly well with the subtler tones of Greek natives.
Alisdair Aird
Gardens in SE England (Sussex); also coastal Southern Greece, and (in a very small way) South West France; MGS member (and former president); vice chairman RHS Lily Group, past chairman Cyclamen Society

Jill S

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #19 on: November 28, 2013, 08:04:54 PM »
It may be perverse but in a way I'm glad to know that I'm not alone in being unable to have flourishing drifts of these lovely, EASY, flowers. I keep trying every few years when the memory of their disappearence is a thing of the past. It would seem that the common factor is hot, dry, stony and Greek, in my case adding in 'windy' and 'island'.

Ho, Hum, on to the next try, I really fancy the creamy coloured ones interspersed with Chicory, or maybe blue flax.
Member of RHS and MGS. Gardens in Surrey, UK and, whenever I get the chance, on Paros, Greece where the learning curve is not the only thing that's steep.

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MikeHardman

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #20 on: November 28, 2013, 09:12:11 PM »
Alisdair,
Linum graniflorum - yes, that's the one.

Other folks,
Alisdair originally posted about this plant here - http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=67.0 (a bit more info).
There are selected strains, such as 'Rubrum' (http://www.thompson-morgan.com/flowers/flower-seeds/hardy-annual-seeds/linum-grandiflorum-rubrum/1288TM). I don't know if the parents of my seeds were the species or not, but I do know they were stunning in flower.
If my upcoming sowing comes to anything, it will also be an interesting test of retention of viability, since it is 3 years since I collected it.

I'm tempted to apologise for drifting off-topic.
But perhaps it is still on-topic...
...With which other plants might calpops associate well?
Mike
Geologist by Uni training, IT consultant, Referee for Viola for Botanical Society of the British Isles, commissioned author and photographer on Viola for RHS (Enc. of Perennials, The Garden, The Plantsman).
I garden near Polis, Cyprus, 100m alt., on marl, but have gardened mainly in S.England

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Fermi

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #21 on: December 02, 2013, 12:33:13 AM »

...With which other plants might calpops associate well?

Hi Mike,
we use them extensively to grow over dormant bulbs because they don't need to be watered in the summer. However they'll also grow where they get a bit of summer watering, in which case they continue flowering a lot longer.
Here's a couple of pics taken this morning where they are growing with Allium acutiflorum and Calochortus splendens which are still flowering at the beginning of summer as we had a relatively wet (for us!) spring; the last pic is with Ixia rouxii which is a late flowering South African with black centres,
cheers
fermi
Mr F de Sousa, Central Victoria, Australia
member of AGS, SRGC, NARGS
working as a physio to support my gardening habit!

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Fermi

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #22 on: December 02, 2013, 12:42:52 AM »
And as you can see they associate well with Euphorbia rigida/myrsinites and the hybrids between them. They tend to be crowded out by E. pithyusa which also grows in this area of the garden,
cheers
fermi
Mr F de Sousa, Central Victoria, Australia
member of AGS, SRGC, NARGS
working as a physio to support my gardening habit!

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MikeHardman

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #23 on: December 02, 2013, 08:00:33 AM »
Fermi,
Lovely; thanks for that; very nice.
I have in mind sprinkling some Nigella amongst my sowings, to add to the medley of colour while keeping an airy feeling to it all.
Mike
Geologist by Uni training, IT consultant, Referee for Viola for Botanical Society of the British Isles, commissioned author and photographer on Viola for RHS (Enc. of Perennials, The Garden, The Plantsman).
I garden near Polis, Cyprus, 100m alt., on marl, but have gardened mainly in S.England

Jill S

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #24 on: December 05, 2013, 09:01:55 PM »
Mike, having just seen Daisy's pics of her Miscanthus sinensis 'Morning Light' (lovely!) it occurred to me that it might provide a super addition/contrast to your planting of the poppies etc. as well as giving interest if they go out of flower.
Jill
Member of RHS and MGS. Gardens in Surrey, UK and, whenever I get the chance, on Paros, Greece where the learning curve is not the only thing that's steep.

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MikeHardman

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #25 on: December 05, 2013, 10:38:45 PM »
Jill,
Thanks for the thought.
But actually, I specifically want not to plant grasses in the calpops area. That's because there are plenty of weed grasses that will colonize it (already in the soil as roots and seeds), and I want to be able to control them with selective weedkiller (gramicide); I use Fusilade.
Mike
Geologist by Uni training, IT consultant, Referee for Viola for Botanical Society of the British Isles, commissioned author and photographer on Viola for RHS (Enc. of Perennials, The Garden, The Plantsman).
I garden near Polis, Cyprus, 100m alt., on marl, but have gardened mainly in S.England

Jill S

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #26 on: December 06, 2013, 01:27:04 AM »
and that's a never ending struggle, at least on the bit of ground I try to cultivate. Do you have to keep applying your herbicide? or is it residual in the soil?
Member of RHS and MGS. Gardens in Surrey, UK and, whenever I get the chance, on Paros, Greece where the learning curve is not the only thing that's steep.

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MikeHardman

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #27 on: December 06, 2013, 09:25:46 AM »
It (Fusilade) is non-persistent in the soil, systemic.

'My' worst grasses are:
- A big clump-forming one, which is impossible for other herbage to compete with.  ...Though in some wild areas, it reaches an equilibrium where the plants fill an area as much as they can - but that leaves individual plants spaced-out. In turn, that creates miniature open glades with a light canopy. In spring, those glades can be like a fairyland because they fill with Anemones in pastel shades of pink, blue and white.
- Bermuda grass. I would like this, because it is not too tall, it is exceedingly good at running and binding the soil, and remains green for a lot of the year. But its runners are too prone to invade adjacent areas, and it spreads by seed as well. I do have a rough area where it is somewhat established, and where I may permit it (trees and shrubs will be the main plantings there). But I daren't allow it in the calpops patch, where it could also be too dense for the calpops, et al. to get going. I say 'could' because it does occur to me that the calpops would be starting to grow when the Bermuda grass was subsiding for the winter.
Mike
Geologist by Uni training, IT consultant, Referee for Viola for Botanical Society of the British Isles, commissioned author and photographer on Viola for RHS (Enc. of Perennials, The Garden, The Plantsman).
I garden near Polis, Cyprus, 100m alt., on marl, but have gardened mainly in S.England

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Alisdair

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Re: Graminicides to kill grass weeds among annuals
« Reply #28 on: December 06, 2013, 05:05:23 PM »
Mike had some further comments on using selective weedkillers to control grasses which I have split off into a separate thread in the Pesticides section on graminicides.
Alisdair Aird
Gardens in SE England (Sussex); also coastal Southern Greece, and (in a very small way) South West France; MGS member (and former president); vice chairman RHS Lily Group, past chairman Cyclamen Society

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Fleur Pavlidis

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Re: California Poppies
« Reply #29 on: February 11, 2014, 07:15:49 AM »
Any news on the autumn sowing of Eschscholzia ? I've never had any luck with them but encouraged by this tread I've just bought a packet of mixed singe and sprinkled them around a newly planted part of the garden where there's lots of room still between plants.
MGS member, Greece. I garden in Attica, Greece and Mt Goulinas (450m) Central Greece