This is my 2nd year of planting sunny annuals. The first flowers look great but then something happens: a bunch of the following blooms open fully but the flower stems are far too short. This happens with poppies and sweet peas and is not limited to the varieties. It even happens to the 'giant' varieties.

The plants are still young. The flowers are well-fed and standing in rich, fertile, well-drained soil. I deadhead regularly. The temperatures have not yet risen enough to become an issue.

Can anybody tell me why this happens? Or am I putting too much pressure on my 'perfect' flowers..? 😜)

Your plants are doing their best to live up to your standards but there are a lot of environmental factors at work here also. Anything that signals (to an annual plant) that summer is coming to a close. Warm days and cool nights, a little water stress....

DaisyI said:Your plants are doing their best to live up to your standards but there are a lot of environmental factors at work here also. Anything that signals (to an annual plant) that summer is coming to a close. Warm days and cool nights, a little water stress....

The thing is, summer has barely started. Can a little water stress (even for a day) cause this?

Usually if stems are long, it is a shortage of light causing them to stretch. Not every stem is a predetermined length anyway. If these are in containers they may simply not have the roots to support a larger plant.

kittriana said:Usually if stems are long, it is a shortage of light causing them to stretch. Not every stem is a predetermined length anyway. If these are in containers they may simply not have the roots to support a larger plant.

Some of them on the same plant are the correct length, though. They are also standing in full sunlight. Maybe they took a knock from replanting because I bought these as seedlings from my nursery?

Fyi, this little lady from a fallen seed is stretching really far to get to a spot of sun: 😜

I just have a very hard time with seeing a poppy that has a DETERMINED proper length, they grow short and long and its perfectly normal. I realize you are in Africa where I haven't been, chuckle, tho I have for 35yrs run 48 states in the USA on 18 wheels and seen poppies all over California...we have heat stress here in Houston and honestly, it makes a plant wilt since it draws moisture into the roots to survive the heat, then perks back up when the sun sets. Heat stress affects a plant by 1) dropping leaves, if heat stress continues, then 2) dropping limbs(trees) or on a smaller plant that does well in heat just turns to dried herbs. Doesn't affect flower stem length.