Help!
Victoria8
Posts: 2
Hi All, I'm quite the novice gardener ( only been at it for 4 years) and I don't know what to do about my Californian Poppies. I planted them from seed last year into my raised flower bed. They grew lovely and reseeded themselves. Last week we were commenting on how stunning they looked ( they have grown to at least 2 foot!) with beautiful deep orange petals, and now they're all lying down! It's a though a large dog has laid on them. They are not spindly and are really made up if 4 small bushes. But I just don't know what to do. They are smothering my fuschia and millions bells. Do I cut them down ( which would be such a shame) or do I move them? What would help them get upright again without caning them? They are tough to came as they really are like bushes. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
0
Posts
Adding some kind of support is all you can do Victoria. They won't transplant unfortunately - I've tried that before and they quickly died. They may have been blown down by the recent wind or you might even be right about the dog in a way - I occasionally find things flattened and discovered it was a fox trampling things down and making a nice 'bed' for basking in the sun! I discovered that when the fox jumped out when I was quietly pottering about one afternoon!
They'll arrange themselves more naturally around your supports quite quickly Victoria. Plants turn their leaves to catch the light and rearrange them when neccessary.
In the sticks near Peterborough
Try to get hold of some twiggy sticks, hazel is good or dogwood, they are the best things for plants like this. Tuck them under the foliage, sink them in firmly, arrange your plants over the twigs and then trim off any bits of twig that stick up. I've just done this with my peonies, works well with hardy geraniums too, if they spread themselves a bit too widely.