Elusive Blue Poppy
This week I took the grands to their volunteer training at our Public Library. While there, i picked up several seed packets from the Seed Library!
My granddaughter's middle school gardening class packages and restocks the seed supply, and she asked, "Grammie, have you visited the seed library?" ...
I also checked out a couple of books - on gardens and gardening. In an essay on the lovely blue Poppy, Meconopsis betonicifolia in Jamaica Kincaid's My Favorite Plant, gardener Wayne Winterrowd writes of being given a start of M. betonicifolia.
The 'very good gardener' who gifted the start told him, "Divide it into single crowns, with a bit of root when you get home. Plant then firmly just at the crown, like strawberries, in rich decayed leaf mold. Bright dappled light. Maybe some morning sun. But pinch out the first flower bud. You MUST pick out the first flower bud."
Since first seeing photos of the Himalayan Blue Poppy in the 70s, I've wanted it! I have a wee photo from the Buchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, and even had young plant from a rare plant nursery, and hoped ....
Wayne goes on to say that after his 5 crowns 'caught and flourished,' each had a fat, furry bud in its center - and he was so tempted to let one bloom ...
Fortunately, another 'good gardener' explained that seedling or division Meconopsis, while capable of becoming perennials, will expend everything on that first flower, and become monocarpic, fading away like a biennial!
"So if it is really betonicifolia that you have, you had better pinch"
In the Findhorn Garden, the Blue Poppy Deva tells Dorothy that in order to thrive, they want to be reminded of home. That we humans think of things like moisture and bright dappled light ...
This article offers tips on starting them from seed.
I'm excited to get seeds and try growing it again! ... and I will gear up to pinch those first buds!!
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