Some of the best Breadseed Poppies to add to your garden

Papaver Somniferum poppies, commonly known as Breadseed poppies, are a fantastic group of plants which can offer true delight to any garden. Annual in characteristic, they come in a huge variety of flower shapes and colors and will provide a wonderful additional plant to any garden bed or border. Meanwhile, they are also a fantastic plant to incorporate into vegetable gardens, attracting a wide range of insects that will come for pollen and fertilize crops and harvests as they go.

With so many different species available it can often be difficult to choose the perfect variety, but here are five varieties that will bring enjoyment to your day.

Lavender Semi-Double Papaver

This fantastic Papaver somniferum variety offers a decadent bloom perfect for any gardener with flamboyant tastes. White and purple in color, its outer petals offer a gorgeous creamy tone. However, it is the Lavender Semi-Double's centre that makes it a great poppy for a border, as an explosion of tiny shredded lavender covered petals circle a pale green centre. With the lavender deepening to a dark purple hue at its center and flowers growing up to four inches across, this Lavender specimen is perfect for those who want to create a blousy border with lots of ruffles and feathers.

Album

This simple yet showy specimen is a gorgeous staple that should be included in all Papaver somniferum collections. Large flowers with delicate pure white blooms will draw the eye and create a sophisticated setting. Used alone as part of a elegant and pale palette, or used as a backbone color to set off other intense highlights, the Papaver somniferum Album is an easy flower to grow, while giving off a gracious aura.

Queens

Like Papaver somniferum Album, the Queens variety offers a beautiful and sophisticated Breadseed variety to be used amongst beds and borders. With a sublimely soft pink petal and cream centre, Queens provides the gardener with a regal flower which will stun guests and gardeners alike. Paired with Album it creates a stunning display of pink and white, but it is easily able to hold its own and will become a much loved specimen.

Purple Fringed Mix

Much like many of the common and self fertilized varieties, Papaver somniferum Purple Fringe are a great group of dark hued poppies for the garden. With taffeta and crepe like petals that are heavily fringed, this mix will provide a range of purple blooms with subtle differences in hue. They are very easily grown, will self seed well, and offer a fantastic accompaniment to flower borders.

Pepperbox Mix

Like the Purple Fringed Papaver mix, this pepperbox collection is highly fringed. Their crepe and taffeta petals offer a delicate touch to any garden setting, and they will be much loved by bees and insects alike. Meanwhile, a more variant range of colors can be expected with flowers bursting into hues of purple, pink, and red.

There are many more Breadseed varieties which will add color, spice, and exuberance to garden borders. And while the five listed above can prove some of the most stunning, there are many more Papaver somniferum poppies to indulge yourself in as your passion grows.