Growing Icelandic Poppies for the First Time – Cut Flower Garden

This year was a first for a lot of flowers in my yard. In that, this was the first time that I was finally able to successfully grow Icelandic poppies. In the past, I had attempted to grow them from seed. As it would turn out, those seeds were not prime and completely failed to germinate. This growing season, I decided that I would play it safe and order a plug tray full of seedlings. I chose the ‘Hummingbird Mix’ Icelandic poppies. 

I transplanted the poppies into my unheated hoophouse at the end of October. Ideally, I would have liked to do it a little sooner, but we had a really wet fall and I was way behind on my garden tasks. This was also the first year for my large unheated hoophouse make from cheap plastic and pvc.

I made sure to protect the seedlings throughout the winter with the use of a row cover, in addition to them being planting in an unheated hoophouse. Anytime the temperature would fall below 30F, I would give the extra protection to the plants – just to make extra certain that I wouldn’t lose any plants.

During the winter, temperatures briefly dipped to about -2F for a couple nights, and I was very worried about the poppies. Though there was some yellowing, most of the plants ended up recovering. By the end of February, the plants were starting to produce flower buds. It wouldn’t be long until they started blooming in March.

The stems on the first batch of flowers were a little wonky looking. Since the temperatures were still cold, I was covering the plants at night. This made the stems look bent and twisted. I’m honestly not sure if I still needed to cover the plants (probably not). I probably won’t continue to use the row cover once they set buds in the future.

Of the mix of flowers, the white and champagne colors were definitely favorites. I was really surprised to the vibrant yellow and orange flowers. Seems online that every one just focuses on the pastel colors. The yellows and reds were equally beautiful!

I was so incredibly pleased with the combination of Icelandic poppies and ranunculus flowers blooming together. I was also able to make some really lovely flower arrangements. Thanks so much for reading 🙂