There’s nothing quite like the sight of bright red poppies swaying in the breeze. If you’re like me, you can never have too many of them in your garden! The great news is that poppies are incredibly easy to propagate. Depending on the variety you have, you’ve actually got a few different options to spread the love. Here’s the lowdown on the easiest ways to get more poppies in your yard.
It All Starts with the Variety
Before you get started, you’ll want to check what kind of poppy you’re working with. Poppies generally fall into two camps: annuals and perennials. For the perennial types, you can choose between sowing seeds or dividing the roots—both work great, and you’ll be happy to know the “mother plant” will keep coming back in the same spot every year. Annual poppies won’t return themselves, but they are prolific self-seeders. They’ll either drop their seeds naturally or you can collect them to plant exactly where you want.
Since common corn poppies can act as annuals or short-lived perennials depending on your local climate and soil, I’ll walk you through both methods.
Dividing Your Poppies
If you want to go the root division route, wait for a frost-free day in the fall or winter.
- Carefully dig around the base of an established plant to expose the roots.
- Use a small garden spade to snip off several side shoots.
- Look for thick, healthy shoots that are at least 3 inches long.
- Get some starter pots ready with good soil.
- Plant the cuttings so the cut edge is just level with the soil surface.
- Give them a few weeks to establish and sprout.
- Transplant them into your garden once spring rolls around.
Sowing Poppy Seeds
Poppies are famous for having sensitive roots, which means they don’t handle being moved (pricked out) very well. Because of that, you’ll want to pick their permanent “forever home” in your garden before you start scattering seeds.
- Collect individual seeds or entire dried seed pods from your existing plants.
- Loosen up the soil in your chosen sunny spot.
- Clear out any large stones or stray roots.
- Mix your tiny seeds with a bit of sand.
- Scatter the mixture broadly over the area.
- Barely cover them with soil—poppies are “light germinators,” meaning they need a little sunshine to wake up!
Pro Tip: Mixing the seeds with sand might feel a little weird at first, but it’s a total game-changer. Since the seeds are so tiny, the sand acts as a filler to make sure they don’t all clump together in one spot. Since poppies hate being thinned out or moved later, this trick saves you from having to pull up crowded seedlings down the road.
Let Nature Do the Work
If you’re a fan of the “low-maintenance” approach, just let the flowers wither and dry out on the stem. The poppy will eventually burst its pods and scatter the seeds all on its own. It’s definitely the easiest method, though you’ll have to be okay with the poppies popping up wherever the wind (or the birds) takes them!
