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Eschscholzia californica

josusa47josusa47 Posts: 3,530
in Plants
I've never grown this before, I bought a small plant in early summer and it has spread itself and bloomed its socks off.  Now I am wondering, will it self seed (we have one of the mildest UK climates), or do I need to collect seed and start it off under glass?
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  • Ladybird4Ladybird4 Posts: 36,876
    It will seed itself around quite happily josusa.
    Cacoethes: An irresistible urge to do something inadvisable
  • B3B3 Posts: 26,573
    You can just buy a packet of seeds, prepare and wet your soil and chuck them on the ground in a sunny spot or save your seeds and do the same. I don't think they take to being transplanted
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • FireFire Posts: 17,403
    I have given up on poppies all together.
  • hogweedhogweed Posts: 4,053
    I didn't know they didn't like to be transplanted so I sowed them in the greenhouse this year. I sowed them thinly into modules. They were a few inches high when I planted them out. They sulked and sulked - in the meantime, ones which had later popped up from self seeding, grew like the blazes and were flowering weeks and weeks before the transplanted ones even thought about coming good. All of them are merrily blooming now although the self seeded ones are just about going over. 
    These are the transplanted ones growing in dirt (I wouldn't grace it by calling it soil!) down my lane.
    'Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement' - Helen Keller
  • hogweedhogweed Posts: 4,053
    The fluffy seed heads are from Crepis rubra, first time grown, which were another earlier star - like a pink dandelion. Hoping all these will self -seed. First time this length of ground has grown anything other than weeds!

    'Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement' - Helen Keller
  • josusa47josusa47 Posts: 3,530
    Fire said:
    I have given up on poppies all together.
    That's a shame.  I have two kinds - Welsh poppies which flower mostly yellow with a few orange, perennial and grow everywhere but where you want them, and some annual pink double ones, big blousy flowers, I love their exuberance.  I don't know where they came from, just arrived one summer and self seeded every year since. I assume you've been trying in vain to grow them?  I can send you some seed from mine, maybe you just haven't found the right variety.  We're clay and limestone and a mild climate.

    Thanks everyone for your advice.  I think I'll take the belt and braces approach, and sow some in pots in case they don't take in the border.
  • FireFire Posts: 17,403
    Thanks, Jo. I have planted bucket loads of seeds over the years, of every type, and had no luck at all.
  • debs64debs64 Posts: 5,029
    Poppies hate me too Fire and I love them! Going to try them on my allotment next year but it's a last ditch attempt! 
    Same thing with verbena boniarensis, carefully nurtured seedlings all died so gave up and got a single plant, I now have seedlings growing in the cracks between slabs in patio! 
    I am gently pulling them up and potting on. Got half a dozen healthy plants. 
  • B3B3 Posts: 26,573
    The only ones I can grow are Californian. All others I sow and never see again. I've given up on them too.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • ladygardener2ladygardener2 Posts: 371
    They look great along the edge of the path like that Josusa 47

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