Oriental Poppy - what do to after flowering
Poppy's have all finished after best display of flowers I've had for years, and now have the large seed heads, but the leaves are starting to yellow and gone a bit tired looking and starting to flop making border look untidy. Because they took up a lot of space in a small border, the whole border is being affected by the look. Can I cut back the yellowing stems to ground level to make space for other planting for the rest of the summer? I know I'll lose the great look seed heads, but don't really mind that. I think I saw on GW that Monty ripped his out of the ground, but not sure I want to do that. I want them to come back next year.
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Pull or cut them off at ground-level ; they WILL come back next year (guaranteed) .
Thanks Paul - oddly, this is the first year after several that I've had to ask this as in prior years they have been quite slow to grow and then they get taken over by everything else when they've finished a few flower so don't recall having to do anything in previous year, but this year, they put on stacks of growth and crowded everything else out, but now they've finished, they have left a big gaps as they've gone yellow. I'll cut back at the weekend and plant something in their place to fill the gaps.