california poppy

The other day I went to buy some more plants to add to the container garden. By the time I arrived at the garden center, the weather had changed to cold and damp with a marine layer coming in. The garden center I went to had recently moved location and did not have a great selection of plants to choose from, but I saw some California poppies and decided they would really brighten things up. I bought four plants and thought I could put two poppies in two containers. I've seen them growing in a yard across the road from me each year, and always love how wild and graceful they look. Unfortunately, as I loaded them into my car, a couple of the flowers snapped off - I hadn't realized they were quite this fragile. Not to worry, they had plenty of buds on them, so I figured other flowers would soon come out.

I didn't have time to plant them when I got home, so left them overnight in the plastic containers they came in. The next day when I went out a couple of the flowers had opened and looked really great. I decided to plant them in terracotta pots that afternoon, but by the time I got to them a few hours later they looked like they had suffered major heat stroke or something, and all the leaves were wilting. OK, I'm pretty good at reviving plants, so I figured they needed a shadier spot and a drop of water and they'd be fine. Next day was really sunny and warm and they did, in fact, look better. The next day, however, was colder and they only had about an hour of sun. The following day they looked positively sick, with one wilting flower. So I looked in my container plant guide book, and it said they need sun to flower, only flower between 10 am and 4 pm, and don't like lots of water. So I moved them to a sunnier spot on the patio, and snapped the only flower off in the process. They were now becoming a major challenge.

Next day there was just one flower trying to stand up. A pathetic display. I looked them up on the internet and found a site that says they like cool sunny weather, and don't do well in containers. Great - it's a container garden - I guess I'll monitor their progress and get ready for another trip to the garden center!