Ok, stupid question here. Is it legal to grow an opium poppy like as a garden plant? Or is it like a pot plant that you cant have at all? Is an opium poppy something a gardener would ever want to grow just because its a poppy? Like a Flanders fields thing?
I don’t think so. They sell the seeds everywhere. Not sure I’d ever want to try it though.
“Is it legal to grow an opium poppy like as a garden plant? “
Sure, the seeds are sold by most of the major garden seed companies. Just look for papaver somniferum in the name.
I have heard that they are legal to grow but if you start slitting the pods with a razor blade and bleeding sap out of them you might have a problem.
You can buy the seeds by the pound on ebay... I just checked to see.
I think dried flower arranger types use the plants in arrangements.
Papaver somniferum
I sure hope they aren’t illegal to grow.
My wife’s garden has a bunch of them.
She likes them because the flowers are bigger than the regular poppies.
She has the typical poppy (pink) ones, but also, purple, red, and white.
There are many different kinds of poppy, and only one or a few produce the opium.
The rest are non-druggy, like the California Poppy.
I have always wanted to try growing them (the opium kind), but they need full sun and my yard has a lot of trees.
PS: You can buy poppy seeds on the internet, the druggy kind. Not against the law to posses the seeds.
Yes, I would love to grow some. They are beautiful.
Not only that, the dried pods are highly sought for floral decorations. There are probably other varieties that would do just as well. Look up bread seed poppies. They are all being sold legally on the internet. Just not the pink and white opium one.
Of course all poppy's have a narcotic effect when you harvest their gum. The opium poppy just has more effect.
It is like the sugar maple, you can make syrup from other maple trees (and other "not maple" trees) it just takes more effort.