Poppies, Poppies, Poppies

Some gardeners can grow anything.

My uncle is one of those. He seems to have an innate sense of just what to do with a plant, a seedling, a graft. It's stunning.

I'm not one of those. I do okay--and I can get certain finnicky plants to thrive. But there are certain plants that take me a while to figure out and get a handle on that are supposedly easy to grow. Columbine, common thyme and poppies all took several years and abortive plantings to get going. And now they're doing beautifully: reseeding and spreading to the point I can dig up and transplant some to other areas. I have a neighbor I trade plants with each spring/summer. She saw the ice poppies last year and said she wanted some. I gave her some pods for seed, but that didn't do well. I have about two dozen plants in all now, they've tripled since last year. I need to dig up about a half dozen small poppy starts to take her before they get too big and settled.