My Garden Nemesis | How to Grow Poppies

This might not mean much to you.

It is just one flower, kind of a dinky flower with only a few petals.
Of normal coloring, shape and diminutive size, you could just brush it off as a wildflower.

But to me, this tiny little flower, the common perennial poppy in its first year...this is a blazing sign of success.

You see, along with ranunculus, the poppy has been that one flower that remained determined not to grow for me.

All the books just rubbed it in by talking about how easy it it to grow poppies...how happy they are to grow anywhere...

"Just scatter the seeds on the snow in winter and they'll grow so well, you'll have TOO many poppies!"

Yeah...no.

I tried over and over and over again.  On the snow, in pots, in the ground, in piles of peat.

California Poppies, Oriental Poppies, yes even Opium Poppies.  

White Linen, Lauren's Grape, Breadseed, Common Flanders Poppies and Cheap Mixes of raucous colors.

...and if you know me at all you know buying a mix of raucous colors means I'm at my most desperate...

Year after year I tried and nada.  

Finally, after a combination of three sowings in the same bed in soil and in piles of peat....I have poppies!  

...and not just the furry stemmed kind above...I have this kind below as well!    I HAVE POPPIES!

Now if only I could grow ranunculus...

So what is your garden nemesis?