Himalayan Blue Poppy
"Pleasures are like poppies spread
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed."
-Robert Burns
(1759-1796)
(1759-1796)
The Himalayan or Tibetan Blue Poppy (Meconopsis grandis) is often referred to as the world's only truly blue poppy, though there are in fact other Meconopsis species which are blue. It comes from the western Himalayas, inclusive of Upper Burma, Tibet & Yunnan province in China, source of so many of the finest plants today treasured for western gardening.
This past year (2002) we experimented with a single Blue Poppy & so far so good. It came from a local grower who believes it should not be categorized as a "shortlived monocarpic perennial" since they've kept individiual plants going since the late 1980s hence it's not all that shortlived. The trick, though, is to get them through their first year, when they are most fragile.
Full cultivation from seeds is an ordeal & we aren't apt to go to the trouble. A young plant newly placed in the garden shouldn't be allowed to bloom the first year, though it will try to do so, as it really has to establish its roots & offsets, or it may not return in the following year. We planted ours in spring & it attempted to bloom in summer, but we clipped the bud-stem. Then in September it produced four buds on a single stem. We clipped two of the buds before they opened, but then we weakened & permitted two of them to flower, which they did in quick succession & were not long-lasting. We at least deadheaded before it tried to produce seeds, so hope we didn't harm its chances of getting good & established by permitting a premature flowering.
Blue Poppies are heavy feeders & should be provided with a liquid fertilizer monthly during its growing seasons, just as one would feed hardy fuschias or clematis. This first year our blue poppy remained a flat rosette of leaves close to the ground, with flower stems only a foot high. Next year, though, it should be quite tall, potentially three feet or taller. Ours is in humousy acidic soil about half sun & half shade. If it makes it through the winter fine & continues to do so well next year, we'll likely plant several.