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Re: Hi, introduction + question(poppies)

On Mon 14 Sep, Iril Kolle wrote:
> 
> Hello, everyone!
> 
> I have been lurking for a while, but have finally come around to introduce
> myself properly.
> I live in Stange, Norway in Norw. zone 4/5.
 
> I'm wondering about something, though: When you have plants with various
> coloured flowers (sown a "mixed collection"), like papaver rhoes "Shirley" -
> If I mark the plants now when they are in bloom, and save the seeds from the
> white or pink ones, can I expect the same colour as the mother plant from
> the seedlings, or will the seeds I collect have mixed colours too??
> I have places in my garden that would be nice to fill out with poppies, but
> I don't want yellow or red poppies mixed with the pink/white/blue shades I
> have there!!!
> 
> Best regards,
> Iril Kolle
> Bjorkvang
> 2314 Espa
> Norway
> zone 4/5
Hello Iril
I have been tinkering with self-sown plants for many years. The papaver
rhoeas was derived by selection from the common field poppy by the rev.
W. Wilks and I have noticed that where the wild ones do manage to
survive there are quite considerable variations of colour when you look
closely.I think you will find that the annual eschscholtzia
(californian) poppies will tend to go to predominantly orange after a
few generations. Aquilegia go to violet or maroon, lupins to blue etc.
The seed merchants overcome this by growing the colours in isolation and
then mixing the seeds for sale. On the other hand when you cross
hollyhocks you could get all sorts of colours, the same applies to
hellebores. There are poppies and poppies, they are mostly no related
and won't hybridise, I have grown Papaver Somnifera, the opium poppy,
for many years, and found that they are very reluctant to hybridise with
their own sort, but you do get slow colour mutations.There are also the
meconopsis, cambrica(welsh) and betonicifolia (tibetan).In all there are
some 70 different poppies.
I do recommend the article in Geoffrey Smith's World of Flowers  if you
can get hold of a copy (the book of a television series, BBC books 1984
ISBN 0 563 21104 0)

-- 
Allan Day  Hereford HR2 7AU allan@crwys.demon.co.uk
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