Gap in Border/oriental poppies
I am after some ideas as to what to do or plant to fill the gaps after my oriental poppies have finished flowereing and the leaves die back as leaves huge gap in the border soon. Do i cut back in the next week or so to ground level to get perhaps a second flush later in the year, or find a plant which will come up after poppy finished to give more seasonal ineterst.
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I cut mine down. It gets new leaves but doesn't flower again. It may further south. I then have phlox coming through that flower in August.
Okay thanks my border is in full sun and the poppies look great through may and generally into june but the recent wind taken lot of flower petals.
Yes, cut them right back to the ground after flowering (at which point they usually do look very messy) and fresh new foliage will grow back quite quickly. I've never had a 2nd flowering but the leaves hold interest and often survive through the winter keeping a bit of green in a herbaceous border.
How about some alliums to take over? They generally like similar conditions. The little drumstick ones - sphaerocephalon - flower later in summer (June/July) and are small bulbs, so you could probably push some of those in later in the year without disturrbing the poppiesin any way.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I cut mine back and then plant some of my potted Dahlias to fill the gaps.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
You can just leave them and have the heads as an interest. Plant densely with many plants around poppies. The more ground cover, the better your plants support each other and cuts out the need to water so much in hotter spells. Geranium leaves are great with ground cover and do a good job of recovering if you cut them back.
I sometimes put a large pot of annuals in to cover the gap, without smothering the new leaf growth.