Meconopsis Blue Poppies

Roll on another 12 months and the poppy grows and flowers delightfully. We take lots of photographs. Furthermore we hear oohs and ahhs from everyone who visits the garden. They are dead impressed that we can grow these poppies and get them to flower. Then the next year arrives and they’re gone!  Disappeared for ever and all we have left are those few snapshots to remind us of their former beauty.

#1  What went wrong? 

#2  What Are Monocarpic Meconopsis?

Many of the meconopsis are not perennial but rather monocarpic (a short lived perennial setting seed just once in its life time) and have a life cycle of around 2 + years. These plants produce a basal rosette of leaves over several years and then once they have flowered they set seed and the plants die away.

• So if you’ve bought a meconopsis and thought that you’d killed it maybe it wasn’t  one of the perennial poppies after all!

Blue and yellow Meconopsis growing amongst Astilbe and Astrantia at Branklyn Garden

Many of the meconopsis plants at Branklyn are monocarpic  like these Meconopsis napaulensis (ofhort) below:

The stamens are large golden bosses with large stigmas in the centre of each flower

They grow a beautiful rosette of leaves for up to 4 years.

Laden with poppy flowers

Then they grow a very tall stem around 2 metres tall laden with poppies in shades of yellow, pink, red and white.

Pink Meconopsis napaulensis (ofhort)

Once these plants have finished flowering they will set seed and die.

White Meconopsis napaulensis (ofhort)

#3  What conditions do the meconopsis blue poppies thrive in?

A new flower opening with deep violet coloured petals

 

As I mentioned in my last post ‘Have you ever wanted to stroll in the deep blue yonder?‘ the success with growing Meconopsis is very much down to the climate. The monocarpic ones require just the same conditions as the perennial poppies.

• They flower in late May into mid/late June (depending on the cultivar) on stems that are between 3 – 5 feet tall.

• They need a moist humus rich soil that can be either in dappled shade or in an open spot in the garden.

Meconopsis blue poppy

• Don’t plant them directly under a tree. They detest competing with tree roots and don’t grow so well and will probably die.

• At Branklyn Garden there are deciduous trees and shrubs in the vicinity of the poppies. However there’s enough space between them so that the roots don’t have to compete for moisture.
  

  Meconopsis blue poppies in among the trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants

• This also creates a ‘mini shelter’ break during windy weather for the plants as the flowering stems are tall. The bigger shrubs also cast a shadow over the rosettes of leaves in the summer time. Consequently it prevents the plants from getting scorched in the hot sun.

white meconopsis

• If you’ve a really dry spell of weather during the summer months you’ll need to keep them well watered. They don’t have deep roots and the combination of  prolonged heat and a dry atmosphere will kill them.

white meconopsis

You also need to be careful when you’re hoeing around the plants. Especially in spring when the new shoots are appearing as the plants produce off sets quite near the parent plant.

You can propagate new plants from these shoots once they are a few inches high. Just plant them in good soil and keep them well watered. Many of the meconopsis are evergreen. But some die away over the Autumn and the new buds are just below the soil level.

• Years ago in one of my previous gardens I used to grow the poppy successfully from seed and managed to keep them growing for a few years at a time. I would snip away the flowering stems on the 1 year old plants and let them put all their energy into producing a good strong healthy crown of leaves for a much better flowering period in the subsequent summer.

Meconopsis horridula | Prickly blue poppy

#4  Who doesn’t like a nice comfy bed and lots of food?

• They don’t like wet soil or clay and they detested growing in the Leavesnbloom garden. At Branklyn Garden the soil is so soft, crumbly and friable to quite a depth. That’s the type of soil that you need to create in your own garden for growing these plants to about a depth of 6 or 7 inches. You can buy bags of organic manure to dig into your existing soil or use your own compost or leaf mould. Add blood, fish and bone meal to the soil as they are very hungry feeders. The’ll have exhausted all the nutrients by year 3 in their growth cycle.

While doing a workshop recently with a group of young school children one of them told me that they were making a ‘nice comfy bed’ for their plant when they were working with the compost.

I quite liked that analogy for any plant and it’s a good way to remember the soil conditions that the meconopsis poppies like.

Meconopisis blue poppies at Branklyn Garden in June 2013