By Sterling Levy

From May 2003 Atlantic Rhodo Newsletter

I saw my first "blue poppies" in a photo of an English garden in the mid-seventies and immediately fell in love. Could I grow them here in Nova Scotia? Where could I get them? It wasn’t until we moved from Dartmouth to Fall River in 1977 and had a new vacant lot on which to build a garden, that I started seriously to look for a source of Meconopsis betonicifolia.

My first seeds came from a Thompson & Morgan seed catalog. I planted them along with my annuals, put them in a nice warm spot and waited for them to grow. Nothing happened! I assumed that the seed was bad,

Around 19801 started to join plant societies; The American Primrose Society, The Royal Horticultural Society, as well as various Alpine and Rock Garden Clubs. Their bulletins and newsletters contained information about all kinds of wonderful new plants and they offered seed including meconopsis. It is from these seed exchanges that I still get much of the seed I plant. From the articles in their publications I learned about stratification, -planting mixes, plant sources, specialty books, and growing conditions in the wild as well as in the garden. And my list of wanted plants’ got very long. By this time I had also learned that Fall River is often significantly colder in the winter than the coast. We were no longer in zone 6.

In 1982 I decided to make a serious effort to establish meconopsis in my garden. I ordered seed of the perennial blue types from all the seed lists. Armed with my newly-found information, I managed, by trial and a lot of error, to germinate and grow many of the resulting seedlings. That Fall I had 250 small plants that I stored carefully in my cold frames. The next Spring there were 25 survivors! These were planted in various areas of the garden where they grew very well but only 10 survived the next winter in the open. However, a new crop of seedlings was on the way.

I continued to plant more seed and gradually appeared to be making some progress. The ‘breakthrough’ happened when my surviving plants started to bloom and I could save and grow my locally grown seed. The local seedlings seemed to be more robust and grew better. In the next 10 years I slowly built up a collection of about 30 clumps including a couple of good white forms. When self-sown seedlings started appearing in the garden I thought I had achieved success so stopped the annual sowing of seed.

Meconopsis tend not to be long-lived plants. They are heavy feeders, quickly exhausting the soil nutrients and needing to be divided and replanted in fresh compost. They dislike heat and drought. The recent trend toward hot dry summers puts a strain on the plants. (We get our water supply from a well and cannot water heavily.)

Cold temperatures with little or no snow cover and our open winters with their freeze-thaw cycles are bad for meconopsis. If the dormant crowns are kept too wet they often rot away at the soil line. These stresses along with neglect on my part eventually reduced my collection. By the Summer of 2001 there were only 2 plants left in the garden. Time to start the production line again.

What have I Iearned about growing these spectacular plants?

My seed starting method

Container - All my seed is started in standard three (3) inch plastic pots. They must be clean! I soak and scrub used pots in hot soapy water with a bit of bleach added.

Medium - A standard commercial seeding mix (e.g. Pro Mix). It should be moist but not too wet, loose with no clumps. Fill the pot to the brim; tamp it slightly to level the surface without compacting the mix.

I sprinkle the seed on top of the mix and water it gently with a fine spray just enough to scale the seed into the medium. Then a thin cover of coarse white silica sand is sprinkled over the entire pot. This helps to trap moisture, slows down growth of moss and allows light to penetrate. (Some seed needs light for germination.)

The pots are put in plastic fish boxes each with a lid. Any translucent container will do. It traps humidity, allows light to enter, keeps out rain and any critters who might dig up the seed. The boxes are left at room temperature for 24 hours to allow the seed to start absorbing moisture and then

are put outdoors in a bright area with no direct sun. The seed is subjected to winter conditions from mid-February onward. Germination usually starts by late April.

I try to keep the seedlings growing in bright light and cool conditions away from direct sunlight. When they get their first set of leaves they are carefully separated into single pots or flats. When they have recovered from the initial transplant shock and start growing they are fed regularly with a commercial plant food mixed at 30% recommended strength. I often use a tomato food. You will need to keep a lookout for the usual critters that like to feast on choice seedlings.

Although the literature tells us that meconopsis do not like pot culture I find that I get a better survival rate if I keep potted seedlings in a frame for their first winter. When planting in the garden I dig a big hole, fill it with the richest soil available, and then put in the plants. Water them well.

Plants will bloom the second or third summer in the garden. Some growers recommend that you pick off the first blooms to force the plant to produce multiple crowns but some of them will die anyway. Don’t be surprised if some of your plants turn out to be a colour other than the lovely blue we

see in photos. Much of the seed is from garden collected seed and may not be true and the colours do vary from year to year especially in young plants.

Although my efforts have been concentrated on the perennial blue meconopsis I have grown and successfully flowered some of the monocarpic types. Meconopsis nepaulensis can be especially spectacular with a flower stem up to five feet tall and a mass of yellow or red flowers. Other seed lots labelled as M. horridula and M. regia have flowered here. All these types die after flowering.

As I write this (February 2003) 1 have sixteen seed lots of various meconopsis planted. With a bit of luck there maybe seedlings on the door prize table at the Fall meetings. Look for the styrofoam cups. 

Plant Societies with seed lists:

Alpine Garden Club of B.C.
c/o Moya Drummond,
3307 W. 6th Ave.
Vancouver, BC, V6RIT2
$25.00/year

North American Rock Garden Society
c/o Jacques Mommens
Box 67, Millwood, New York, 10546 USA
$25.00 USD/year

Ontario Rock Garden Society
c/o Andrew Osyany
Box 146, Shelburne, ON, LON ISO
$ 17.50/year

Recommended Reading:

Meconopsis by James L. S. Cobb
Timber Press -(1989)
ISBN 0-88192-151-3

Poppies: The Poppy Family in The Wild And In Cultivation
by Christopher Grey-Wilson
Timber Press - Revised Edition (2000)
ISBN 0-88192-503-9